


Control

by notenuffcaffeine



Series: The Parent Pack [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Derek, BAMF Stiles, BAMF parents, F/M, Hunters are bad, Hurt Stiles, I Don't Even Know, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Kyle McCall is a pain in the ass, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Chris Argent, POV Derek Hale, POV Melissa McCall, POV Sheriff Stilinski, POV Stiles, Pack Family, RIP Jeep, Road Trip!, Sheriff Stilinski Knows, Shut up Stiles!, Stilinski Family Feels, The First Rule Of Fight Club, Wolf Derek, damnit! stiles just got that back!, i wrote a whole fic just to include a puppy pile, parent pack, post-season 3a - AU, stiles and derek are trouble magnets, twins are useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/notenuffcaffeine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Please tell me that while I’ve been sleeping they’ve outlined their entire evil plan and it involves the ultimate destination of Disneyland, wherein they intend to torture us with screaming five-year-olds. Because this does not look good when left to the imagination,” Stiles said.  He breathed it more than spoke it, giving kudos to whoever made werewolves that come with super-sensitive hearing.  “And my imagination has been online for exactly two minutes already and I’m pretty sure Disneyland is the only possible salvation here.”</p>
<p>“Nobody’s mentioned Disneyland,” said Derek.  Somehow, even without adding volume, he managed to sound his usual flat and annoyed.  “They’ve mentioned somebody named Hutch and getting paid for turning in an alpha and beta.  And the radio said there’s an Amber Alert out for you as of two hours ago.”</p>
<p>-- or --</p>
<p>What everybody did on Derek and Stiles' kidnapped-vacation while dodging the feds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, lovingly beta'd by HilaryParker54, but all mistakes are mine.
> 
> Second, I loved the comments from "Faith"! Thanks guys! Before this fic was ever even thought up, I had literally had *hours* of discussion with friends about the whole missing-first-name thing with the sheriff. It is a conflicted issue for me and I have no answers. But. I wanted to write a fic anyway. I promise you, there is a first name to be found in this fic... eventually. So stick with me on this. ;c)

With just one more day of planned vacation left, Sheriff Stilinski sat in the waiting room of the department-approved psychiatrist in Sacramento.  He left town for the evaluation, just in case it became a federal issue and someone yelled about bias.  Stilinski knew Kyle McCall from way-back and friends made dangerous enemies.  Things hadn’t fully settled down enough to know which camp Kyle was choosing.  Which left the small town sheriff reading up and covering the bases to help cover for a pack of kids way in over their heads.  

Sacramento wasn’t far off, only an hour and a half drive with a lead-foot. The waiting room was just stuffier than the average clinic back at home.  He was on time for his appointment, and Dr. C. Clayton was, according to their secretary, also on schedule.  Stilinski sat with a smile on his face and read through a homesteading magazine that sat in the pile on the end-tables.  It would all work out fine.

Dr. C. Clayton turned out to be Dr. Charlyn Clayton, which surprised Stilinski a bit.  She had dark hair and a bright smile and reminded him instantly of Melissa, which was as useful as it could be awkward.  They settled into big comfortable chairs in the office and chatted affably about the weather until the woman politely picked up the manilla folder.  Down to business.  Stilinski rubbed his hands on the knees of his jeans and took a breath for courage.

“So Sheriff,” Dr. Clayton began.  “Before we get started on weightier matters, I’ve got a bit of housekeeping to do it looks like.  The faxed copy of your paperwork came through without your name.”

“Oh! Sorry about that.  Force of habit,” he replied.  “I actually think I left it off.  Normally just put in the initials, you know?”

Dr. Clayton smiled and nodded, held her pen poised to paper in the manilla file.  “What is your first name?”

“Classified.” Stilinski said with a grin.  The answer surprised the doctor and she tilted her head.  Stilinski wasn’t sure if he felt completely comfortable being the only crackpot with a classified first name on her caseload.

“Why?” Dr. Clayton asked.

Stilinski leaned forward just enough that his arms were off the sides of the chair and he could talk with his hands.  “Well, you see, it’s kind of a long story-”

“Trust me, this is the perfect place for long stories,” interrupted the doctor, amused. Stilinski thought about it and then nodded.

“Basically what it boils down to,” he said, “Is solidarity with my son’s choice not to go by his given name.”

The doctor softened and smiled.  He could see the ‘Aww...’ coming.  Instead, she asked, “He’s a Junior?”

Stilinski held up a hand and waggled it side to side.  “Nope. I just think MacGyver had the right idea on the whole name thing.”

Dr. Clayton raised an eyebrow and angled her chin in that doctor way that could spell trouble.  “Except his name was MacGyver.  And he made things blow up.”

“So-li-DA-ri-Ty,” said Stilinski, a smug grin still on his face.  Clayton wasn’t sold.  Stilinski sighed.

“When my son was about eight years old, he got a bit tired of the name he was born with.  It’s Polish and came from his mom and... didn’t go over well once he got past kindergarten,” he explained.  “So he started going by Stiles.  Which was, until then, what I had gone by since jr. high, and, if we’re being honest, probably the main reason he chose that name.”

“Stiles Stilinski?” asked Dr. Clayton.  “It’s derivative.”

“Yep,” said Stilinski.  

“So what’s your first name?”  Dr. Clayton asked, grinning.  She wasn’t going to let him get out of it.  He sighed and waved across at her file and pen.  When she handed it over, he wrote in the name on the lines she pointed to.  She read it sideways and started making her mental notes.

“So it’s -”

“Stilinski,” he interrupted. “I don’t mess with promises I made my kid,” he told her.  She accepted it, intrigued, and looked back up at him.

“And is he alright? Stiles,” she asked, changing topics.  “I saw in the report that he and his friends were who found you.”

The business Stilinski had prepared for.  He nodded.  “He’s doing well.  Focused on friends, focused on his school.  Watches me like a hawk, but he’s done that since his mom died, so that’s nothing new.”

And then, for the next hour and forty five minutes, he recounted the last ten years of his life, just to be on the safe side, all the way up to include the past two weeks and the long hours buried in a sacrificial offering hole under a tree.  He may or may not have given Stiles a touch of supernatural credit, claiming the kid had been acting funny only since Blake showed up and talking it up like some kind of bad vibe had tipped Stiles off to the woman’s evil and he hadn’t known what to do with it.  

Stilinski was also sure to tell her how he had spent his two weeks of vacation, chock full of _normal_ things, like cleaning the garage and watching TV, commiserating with Melissa, and submitting his son to the embarrassment of family dinners out so that neither of them had to cook.  Dr. Clayton was particularly amused by his descriptions of Stiles’ menu-negotiations for the less-than-healthy options Stilinski would have preferred.   _See, Doc, all is perfectly fine and completely normal in this corner_ , he thought and Stilinski hoped very hard she caught on.

Then the dreaded question.

“And how have you felt the past two weeks?” Clayton asked.  “Two weeks is hard for anyone in your line of work to sit idle.  Now you’re going to go back...”

“Well, I wish the feds weren’t still camped out in my office,” Stilinski said truthfully.  “But that’s my own fault, so what can I do?”  He shrugged. “But I think I’m good with it.  I want to get back to the stuff I do, you know? I’m figuring things out at home.  I’ve even got a new motto.”

That made the doctor grin again.   “What’s that?”

The sheriff smiled back.  “You learn something new every day.”

 

***

 

The days since the darach's human shell had been found - thoroughly and completely dead as the proverbial doornail, - had been ticked off with stickers on a calendar in Stiles' room.  It was over and done and strangely quiet.  Every day was kicked off with a celebratory stab of a sticker in a box.  Stiles was alive - still a virgin, but he couldn't win them all - and his dad was alive and Scott and everybody else they cared about, all still kicking.  It was the only smug confidence Stiles really had on the matter, his one small break from _constant vigilance_.  He just knew something was going to happen sooner or later... But lookit that, they'd all gone almost two weeks without a job-related injury.  And Stiles was out of stickers.  Which was why he was in his car at a stoplight on the other side of town, not headed home after school like his dad had made him almost-promise.  The town was small enough; there was no way he was buying kids stickers where someone might recognize him. He still had a 15 year plan that required a passing regard for his public image.

He played air drums against the steering wheel to whatever beat was stuck in his head - he really needed a new radio - and looked around idly as he waited for the light. He caught sight of the rear view mirror on the car ahead and it startled the invisible drum sticks right out of his hands.

"Derek?" he blurted. He thought he recognized the scruffy jaw and the bushy brows but the mirror's angle on the man wasn't one Stiles was accustomed to. He was proved correct a moment later when Derek looked right at him in the reflection, the slight relaxing of features that wasn't quite a smile showing the recognition. Only a werewolf would have been able to hear Stiles over the jeep engine. Despite himself, Stiles grinned and went back to air drums. For some reason that defied logic, seeing Derek just cruising around in his Mom-car seemed like a good omen.  Two alphas in town were better than just Scott.  Well, three counting Scott’s mom.  Maybe Derek had run out of calendar stickers too.

Stiles settled down when he saw the other traffic light going yellow.  He would get the green soon and he had to be on his game if he wanted to harass Derek Hale in traffic.

Then instinct hit Stiles like a sledgehammer and time seemed to slow down.  His mouth opened to warn Derek but he couldn't tell what he needed warned about yet.  Wide eyes checked the street Derek was about to cross at the green light.  A GMC with a screaming engine plowed through the light from their left. Another, smaller farmer's truck pulled a similar stunt from the right, both headed full speed into the intersection.  Stiles gunned the jeep engine, not sure where the swerving trucks were going to hit.  He rammed right into the back end of Derek's car, trying to push them both through the light.  The GMC took Derek's car at the nose.  Stiles had angled his jeep enough that the second truck hit his quarter panel and sent him ducking into the passenger seat.

It was like sound and time had stopped.  And then came rushing back as the jeep came to a final stop. Engines still ran, complaining metal, and he swore the broken glass of Derek's rear window splintered and whispered and Stiles could hear that too.  A horn blaring was like a background blur of white noise in the clarity of everything else.

Stiles’ door didn't open, jammed by the damage from the truck that had hit him.  He climbed out the passenger side, up on the hood of the truck that had attacked Derek to get around where the three vehicles were crushed together.  Stiles' blurry mind told him this was an attack and, whiplash or not, Stiles was scrabbling to get to safety.  He jumped from the truck hood to the hood of the jeep, slipping a little on the glass but he dropped to the pavement and pulled at Derek's door.

Derek was slumped over the steering wheel, stunned.  The airbags had deployed and it looked like he couldn't figure out the escape route surrounded by white parachute pillows. He all but fell out of the door when Stiles cleared up the mystery for him. Stiles grabbed his shoulder and tried to steer him out of the tangle of cars

"Ambush," Derek hissed at Stiles. As if to punctuate the delayed realization, their one way out, the only one not blocked by a crashed vehicle, was suddenly blocked by two new vehicles.  Stiles crowded Derek's space and shoved him toward the dwindling escape route. He had seen the driver of the SUV in Gerard's crew.

"Go! Its hunters..." He said. There weren't enough witnesses.  Derek was a sitting duck.  He hissed more like a cornered cat.  Stiles looked over at him and saw the problem too late; the driver of the truck that had hit the jeep leaned in the open door of his truck, the vehicles hiding the weapon in his hands from the red-light cameras. Derek slumped against Stiles, jerking his attention back.  Stiles scrambled to get him up again but Derek was already in too close and dead weight.

There was a jabbing pain in Stiles' side and as he kept Derek up on his feet - barely - Stiles looked to his own ribs, afraid to see glass from the crash he somehow hadn't noticed.  Instead, he saw a dart embedded into his shirts.  He squawked in confusion, trying to figure out why he was being shot at when the Argents had taken him off their werewolf list months ago.  Stiles and Derek staggered only a few steps from the steaming wreckage of their cars before they started going down.  

Stiles registered strong arms hauling him to his feet before he could fall on his face. He let his shoes drag, suddenly too tired to realize why it was a bad idea.  The last thing he heard was a deep growl from Derek, but even that disappeared into the black.

***

 


	2. Chapter 2

The site of the crash had been detoured by rush-hour traffic.  It was an unpopulated area, four corners of nothing but brush and rolling grass hills already turning yellow in preparation for the not-far-off winter.  A half mile in one direction was a business park, two miles in the other sat a shopping mall.  It was, however, a busy street that crossed a highway at a four way stoplight, with speed cameras set up for people who decided to run the intersection.  A memorial to lost loved ones had been set up on one corner because of the number of accidents the area was prone to.  And never had Sheriff Stilinski seen a bigger clusterfuck of dead vehicles at that spot. Of course his son’s jeep was in the middle of it; it only figured.

"So that truck," a lieutenant reported, pointing to the largest rig in the mix. "Was reported stolen from the Richards' ranch about an hour ago."

Stilinski dragged a hand through his hair. "Don't tell me. They were both stolen."

"Okay, I won't tell you that part," the woman replied gently.  She moved on to the next info on her sheet. "The Toyota is registered local, not reported stolen, no outstanding anything. We can't tell if it was the target or if the jeep was."

"Whose is it?" Stilinski asked.  He hated asking questions off someone else's work when he knew full well he should have been able to handle this.  Except it was his kid's car sandwiched between three others and there were no recent check-ins with the hospital for accident injuries.  Stiles was missing.  The sheriff wasn't that swift at catching on just yet and hadn't clocked in when dispatch got the call.  He was supposed to be on vacation, damnit.

"Sheriff, maybe we should let the Feds..." The lieutenant's hesitation earned her a raised eyebrow that threatened to glare. "I just... It could be related..."

"It can't be," clarified Stilinski.  "Whose car is that, Miranda?"

The woman cleared her throat. "Derek Hale's, Sheriff."

Despite his best efforts, the frustrated yell escaped and echoed off the hill-guarded roadside.  Stilinski felt what had to be a panic attack threatening, the empty feeling left where there should have been lungs processing air.  He waved off Miranda's effort to get him to sit down.

"You work this, alright?"  He requested.  "Don't even ask Kyle's opinion.  And for god's sake don't let him find out Stiles was involved."

The last was half-hearted futility and they both knew it.  Miranda nodded anyway.

"Do you need someone to drive you home?" she asked.

"No, I've got it," Stilinski said.  He held up his cell phone.  "Call me here when you find something. I'm going to go start looking for my son."

She let him go with no more than a concerned sigh and Stilinski moved back to his car.  He was already on the phone, texting Scott and Melissa as he walked the block back behind the police line to where he had left the car.  Not giving two shits about the laws of the land, he called Chris Argent once he got behind the wheel to drive off.  His car had no hands-free devices and he didn't care.  He needed to know why the hell Hunters were targeting his son.

 

***

 

There were a few times in Derek's comparatively young life that were quite as miserable as waking up stuffed inside an actual dog kennel.  The bars bit into his back despite the rubber mat that covered them and it stung.  He could hear the static of electricity, a buzz that threatened to drive him mad at a lower frequency.  He felt the pulse in the metal but it was too low to cause damage.  Just enough to ground him and keep his fangs tucked in.

It was a redundant measure, anyway, because Derek didn't have room to shift forms when he was tucked under Stiles’ shoulder.  Two grown males made for pretty close quarters in an albeit wolf-sized dog kennel.  Derek was glad Stiles was still asleep because the last thing he needed to deal with was a smart-ass in shared spaces.  There was no personal space bubble, Stiles' shoulder dead weight into his chest and their legs cramped up and tangled into each other in order to get the door closed.  Stiles was going to make a scene when he woke up.  But Derek allowed it for now, content to hear and feel the steady heartbeat.  He could still feel the drugs making his own system sluggish and was slightly impressed that the dose hadn't killed the kid.

Outside of the metal cage, the car smelled like smoke and junk food.  Gun oil and fired shots.  Even weed.  There were two men at the front of the SUV, but the radio was the only thing making noise.  The AC was on but didn't get to the back very well.

Derek edged up on his side, trying to see out of the windows.  Trees and sky, the top of highway signs.  The electricity running through the cage hummed at his back, enough to make him wince.  Not enough to hurt.  The metal box was edged in by a wood frame to reinforce the cage against kicking or prying apart at the seams.  Derek reached up and touched the wood, felt the unnatural buzz it radiated.  Mountain ash. Definitely hunters.  Derek frowned over at the still unconscious Stiles.  What would hunters want with the pain-in-the-ass son of the sheriff?

Derek stayed propped up on an elbow, watching and listening and trying to keep his head down below the level of the front bench seat.  A sudden voice from the front made him flinch and duck.  He listened, to the men and the car engine and the radio, tracking all three as his barometer on when to start worrying.

"The way this guy rammed the alpha's car, he was helping him," came the passenger's eventual effort at conversation.

"It’s a Beta.  They both tried to scram out of there," said the driver.  "The Beacon Hills boys got us a bonus."

"Hutch didn't say anything about needing a beta," came the reply.  "Is he really going to pay us for the extra?"

"He damn well better.  That siren in Yuma cleaned me out."  It was the driver again, an unconcerned tone softening the anger.

"I started running out of money in LA.  But that don't mean Hutch will just give us enough to split four ways.  I was thinking, if he doesn't, we just say screw it and avoid Argent's territory for awhile."

The passenger's solution made the driver laugh.

"We get the easy job, take their tamed little alpha off their hands and then we skip town on them?"

"It wasn't easy..."

"No, but it was a helluva lot easier than stealing a couple of trucks and totaling them.  That was impressive..."

Derek growled low, not as impressed.  He had liked that car, damnit.  He tuned them out as they laughed at their re-creations of the scene from the safety of the next block.  Derek's mind was on whoever Hutch was and why he would be paying money for live-captured alphas.  

There was an unhealthy level of repeated science in Derek's few times at the hands of Gerard Argent; they knew what they were doing better than he did.  It made sense that they had to get their intel from somewhere, someone had to be testing... Derek felt sick and crouched lower, not caring that he invaded Stiles' space in the instinctive need to get out of sight.

 

***

 

"I just told you, I don't know."  Chris Argent was not a man who liked having to repeat himself.  Which was just fine with Stilinski because he was not a man who liked having to investigate the apparent kidnapping of his only son.

"And what I'm telling you is that I would like you to find out," said Stilinski.  He kept his tone controlled but the anger was still there.  "Because this thing makes no sense without the hunters behind it."

The two men squared off on either side of the Argent's coffee table.  Allison and Melissa sat on the couch watching them, Scott paced by the front door.

"It was an attack.  Two trucks hit in coordination, both of them stolen and abandoned.  The other two drivers missing.  One of them a werewolf."  Stilinski ticked the points off on his fingers.  Chris stared at him, expression just as frustrated as before.

"I'll make a few phone calls," Chris promised.

"Thank you," Melissa chimed in quickly.  Stilinski was determined to ignore the hint to leave but Melissa stood up, determined not to let him.   Stilinski narrowed his eyes but the woman could pull a far more intimidating face by virtue of being a mom with more practice than a small-town sheriff.  She leaned into him to shove him bodily toward the door, her hand folding into his to add a little honey to the request.

"Has someone even checked Derek's place yet?" Melissa asked.

"Of course not," grumbled Stilinski.  "He lives nowhere near the attack..."

"Then we should do that."  Melissa's definition of "should" was clearly "will" and Stilinski muttered under his breath about pushy females.  Melissa ignored him.  She looked to Allison.  "If you could stay here and help your dad, we'll take Scott and leave you two to the hunter side.  Maybe there's a trail we can follow."

Allison nodded.  Scott wasn't about to argue his mother even though Stilinski could tell the kid had about as much faith as he did in them finding anything at Derek's.

***


	3. Chapter 3

The pain in Stiles' side - his entire right half, to be exact - woke him before he really wanted to be awake.  He was warm and squished and were it not for the pain, comfortable enough to let the brain-fog keep him.

"Oww...urghmph!" He was wide awake at the hand closing over his mouth. He started to push out in an effort at defense but stopped when he recognized Derek's scent on the hand at his nose.  When he had started paying attention to the different smells between people he had no idea but he knew for a fact it was Scott's fault from all the times he'd had to hear about how Allison smells like lilac and sugar cookies and sunshine and everyone else smells like soap and sweat.  Derek just smells like Derek.  Especially with his hand covering Stiles' nose.

Then Stiles realized how close Derek was and started to piece together why.  Derek held a finger to his lips, levering himself off of Stiles' chest to try peeking unnoticed over the bench seat that blocked Stiles' view of the car.  Stiles waited, looking around to get his bearings.  He could tell he was in some kind of car, an old Suburban Gas Guzzler, and it was dark outside and inside.  Even though he had last seen daylight fresh from the confines of school, which meant he was now in the neighborhood of five hours from home.  And Derek was way too close.  Seriously, why?  Stiles edged back into the side of the cage and twice as quickly ducked his shoulder reflexively into Derek's.  He looked at Derek, alarmed by the hunters' trick he remembered from the Argent basement.

Derek gave a narrow look that seemed to signal an all-clear, and Stiles intentionally didn’t come to the conclusion that he was also being told to stay quiet.  Quiet was the last thing on his list of things to be, but for the sake of sharing breathing space with a werewolf, it was what he opted to try.  Sort of.

“Please tell me that while I’ve been sleeping they’ve outlined their entire evil plan and it involves the ultimate destination of Disneyland, wherein they intend to torture us with screaming five-year-olds. Because this does not look good when left to the imagination,” Stiles said.  He breathed it more than spoke it, giving kudos to whoever made werewolves that come with super-sensitive hearing.  “And my imagination has been online for exactly two minutes already and I’m pretty sure Disneyland is the only possible salvation here.”

“Nobody’s mentioned Disneyland,” said Derek.  Somehow, even without adding volume, he managed to sound his usual flat and annoyed.  “They’ve mentioned somebody named Hutch and getting paid for turning in an alpha and beta.  And the radio said there’s an Amber Alert out for you as of two hours ago.”

Stiles seemed to freeze a moment, then had to do the math to make sure he actually qualified for the emergency alert system, then moved on to more pressing matters.  “I’m not a beta.”

“I don’t think we really want to tell them that _now_ ,” returned Derek.  He frowned, actually looked worried instead of annoyed for a moment.  “Don’t tell them that.  I mean it.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.  “Where are we?”

“Not Beacon Hills,” said Derek.  “But not as far as Kansas.”

“Oh, haha, thanks for pissing on the ruby slippers, Toto.  Have we stopped anywhere?  Did they say anything-” Stiles broke off suddenly, mouthing a silent string of _Ow!_ and _Shit!_ and groping down toward his leg at the most intense charlie-horse he had ever had in his life.  Derek huffed and shoved at him with his shoulder.

“That’s my leg,” he growled.  Stiles dodged back, into the edge of the cage, which he then pinged away from, hitting his head against the chin of Derek’s glaring face.  Stiles crumpled down to bite at his wrist and wait for the pain to go away.  He twitched and there was an involuntary kick that rattled the cage and made Derek growl at him again.  It didn’t seem to have much impact on the driver of the car hauling them far, far away from home, so Stiles had no problems ignoring Derek.

Eventually the two had to figure out a way to co-exist in a custom dog-kennel.  The silent negotiation resulted in Stiles and his cramped tendons sprawled on his back to take up as much space as he possibly could and the werewolf scowling on his side and balanced very carefully, for the sake of their manly reputations and all.  Because sharing a dog-kennel wouldn’t completely destroy that on its own, so they had to make an effort.  

Stiles checked his pockets for his cell phone, before he realized that had been in his backpack, which had been sitting beside him in the Jeep, and was probably now on the floorboards of said Jeep in the sheriff department impound lot awaiting investigation.  Stiles’ history notebook was now part of an investigation.  Nobody saw that coming, ever.  Stiles did find his iPod, sharing the good news with a grimace.  That was the best he could offer up: tunes, Muzak, Pandora’s source-material, as a kidnap-soundtrack if you will, and Derek certainly wouldn’t.  

To his surprise, Derek took the device from him and leaned an elbow on his chest to browse through the iPod.  Stiles blinked at him.  Derek rolled his eyes.

“Let me know if you’ve got something better to do,” he said, still whispering.  “Back of a moving vehicle, under lock and key and mountain ash-”

Stiles nodded and stared out the window at the passing darkness.  He thought he saw the shadows of trees, the occasional glow of a gas station, and tried to match it up with his mental map of California.  Four or five hours south would take them to the flat lands and heavy city traffic, so it wasn’t south or there would be more traffic around them. To the north lay Oregon and five hours of driving would mean they crossed state-lines, but that was stretching it because Southern Oregon packed cities around the highways, not quite so many trees.  There weren’t enough lights.  He looked to Derek.

“Do you smell the ocean?” he asked.  Derek shook his head.

“Pine trees.  Evergreens,” Derek replied.  “Smoke.”

Stiles sniffed but it was predictably not effective for anything other than smelling Derek again.  The AC was on to filter everything and none of the outside smells were strong enough for him.  His ears had signaled a climb in elevation at some point while he was passed out.  Stiles went slightly bug-eyed.

“Nevada,” he mouthed.  “We’re in Nevada.”

Derek acknowledged the guess with a shift in his attention from the iPod to Stiles.  Then he grunted and went back to an unsteady game of _Tetris_.  He must have caught Stiles’ growing panic because he handed the iPod back, _Angry Birds_ loading up.  With Stiles’ hands occupied, Derek got in his space enough to speak near his ear.

“Stay down, stay quiet, and we leave the second they screw up,” he said.  “Trust me.  These two will screw up.”

Derek went back to leaning on Stiles’ chest to keep himself away from the low electrical current at his back.  Stiles figured he had to be doing something, some kind of wolf-thing, because the extra weight felt somehow more reassuring than Derek’s words.  The dark worries and incessant thoughts that Stiles kept locked up in a box in the back of his brain since the darach-incident were quieter, easier for the more constructive thoughts to shout over, with someone in his space.  Scott had been Stiles’ go-to antidepressant for two weeks. Scott wasn’t locked in the back of a stalker-van being kidnapped across state lines - into a state that had a policy of “what happens here, stays here,” no less - and Stiles was very, truly, grateful for that.  He was just maybe slightly grateful that it was Derek instead.  In case he got them killed.

 

***

 

As the day dragged on, the bottle on the shelf was starting to look friendly.  Sheriff Stilinski took to growling out his frustrations at the old China cabinet and left the bottle sitting on the shelf, surprised that it helped keep his sanity on a more even keel to talk out loud.  To a bottle of Jack.  Whatever.

There had been no trail from the accident site, no trail from the school or Derek's.  Nothing at Scott’s house, nothing at Deaton’s clinic.  There was nowhere left to check for the teenager in Beacon Hills.  Stiles just disappeared, like an alien abduction case, or someone caught up in the Rapture, which were both comparisons his son would approve of, Stilinski was sure.  It was all a very Stiles-like production; a little over the top in execution and very random.  Stilinski was fast becoming an opponent of the Family Luck.

When the front door knocked, Stilinski wasted no time answering it.  Chris stood on the mat, wearing an expression that made no sense.  The man was still angry, but Stilinski was guessing that somewhere out there in the wide world of hunters was a wounded enemy he wanted to track down and finish off.

"What'd you find out?" the sheriff asked without preamble.  He let Chris in but was too distracted to bother taking the conversation out of the hallway.

"I think you might be right," said Chris. "The guys I work with, no one knows anything.  They say.  But my network has all but shut down."

"What's that mean?" asked the sheriff.  Chris shook his head, frustrated.

"Nobody answers their phones.  And that doesn’t happen.  It can’t, or there’s no point in the network.  If we were suddenly besieged by trolls -"

Stilinski balked at him.  "Wait, those are real?"

Chris narrowed his eyes briefly but otherwise ignored the interruption.  "- then I would have access to four of my usual six men and absolutely no outside help.  Which could be because of the Amber alert.  Everyone knows the situation with the Hales, for my daughter's safety, so if Stiles turns up missing..." Chris shrugged, a forced acceptance of How Things Are.

"But it could just as easily mean your crew was involved," said the sheriff.  Chris nodded.

"I have no solid leads, sheriff.  I'm sorry for that," Chris said. Stilinski paced the hall, neither of them having bothered to move away from the door after it closed.  Things were quiet as Stilinski tried to think and Chris weighed out whatever went on in the hunter's mind.

"I remember something my father mentioned last year," said Chris after a moment.  "I don't know if it will give us anything at all.  But I have a theory."

"Which is...?" asked Stilinski.  Chris shook his head, trying to dispel some of the sheriff's eager hope.

"A wild goose chase,” he said, his tone entirely honest and unguarded for once.  “Care to take a trip to Lake Tahoe?"

"What? What's in Tahoe?"

"Hopefully not your son,” replied Chris.  Stilinski had to think real hard about calming down because the false starts and stops from his only informed ally on the matter was working at his last nerve.  Chris held up a hand to placate for peace.

“Not trying to be difficult,” the hunter reported.  “But you wouldn't believe me if I told you.  And it's all I've really got to go on that isn’t at a complete dead-end."

"So we go to Tahoe just to mark another spot off the list of places Stiles and Derek aren't," said Stilinski.  The unhappy scowl replaced Chris’ cautious look.

"Just to be clear, I'm not looking for Hale," said Chris.  "If he tangled with the hunters this badly while he was gone, that is his problem. But Stiles shouldn't have been involved."

The sheriff shrugged it off.  He was well aware of Chris’ prejudices but still trying to work with the man. There was some middle ground but Stilinski was too much of a cop to promise to overlook someone in trouble just because the Argent family had their hangups.  And Chris was obviously expecting trouble.  "We bring both of them back, if we find them on this wild goose chase."

"If it's safe to do so," agreed Chris.  Stilinski looked at him a little sideways.  The man sure knew how to make things sound as dire as possible.

"Are we going to need Scott?" asked the sheriff.  He had his cell phone in hand and was dialing numbers as he moved around collecting jacket and keys and locking windows.  His service weapon was already waiting for him on the kitchen table.  

"No.  The kids stay here," said Chris darkly.  "And don't even ask about Melissa."

Stilinski decided then not to ask about whatever they were heading into after that.  He just hoped his kid wasn't actually involved in it.

***


	4. Chapter 4

Melissa sat at her kitchen table, trying to unwind after her long day.  She needed to be asleep but her mind wouldn't stop.  She had gone back to work twelve hours before the accident and it had been a long day since. Thinking ahead, she had already called out of the next three days.  Scott was sticking close to home and he and the other kids had camped in his room.  Kyle thankfully hadn't come back yet.  Not for the first time, Melissa regretted agreeing to let the man play over-protective sentinel from her guest room.  For all the former-family interacted voluntarily with each other, he could have gotten as much "protecting" in by checking into a hotel.  At least Melissa didn't have to feed him.  She was still wondering what to feed herself.

It was shortly after six when her cell phone chimed. She recognized the sheriff's number.

"Did you find him?" she asked as a greeting.

"No, but Chris wants to check a few places," said Stilinski.  Melissa took that to be a hopeful sign and started to stand up to call her son down from his den.

"Do you need me to get Scott and Isaac?"

"It's not safe to get them into things," came the unhappy reply. "But we're heading out of town."

"How far?" Melissa didn't like this news at all.

"Tahoe."

"What's in Tahoe?"

"I don't know, Chris won't tell me so I'm thinking nothing good.  It's a long shot, like checking Derek's place this afternoon," said Stilinski.

"But Kyle's going to notice this." Melissa worried at her lip and stood up to pace the kitchen.  The sheriff leaving town after his son's disappearance was going to raise all kinds of flags they didn't want.

"And I'll tell Kyle where he can shove it," replied Stilinski. "I'm not interfering with his investigation if I'm out of town."

Well, that was one way to put it. Melissa settled against the counter, her mind turning over an idea.

"I'm going to check with Peter again," said Melissa. "Just to be sure he hasn't heard anything."

"What? Don't."  There was no missing the concern in Stilinski’s tone and Melissa almost grinned.  She knew there were plenty of reasons why Peter should bother her, and why he did bother Scott and Stiles, but she just couldn’t quite work up the same level of animosity.

"Just go to Tahoe and make sure Stiles isn't there.  For one thing, he’s too young to gamble," Melissa said, trying for the light sarcastic huff the sheriff rewarded her with.  "I'll hold down the fort while you two are gone.  Scott and I can handle Kyle."

 

***

 

For a few seconds after the big engine cut out, Stiles stared at Derek hoping for a great big clue telling him what came next.  Derek caught his eye briefly before the werewolf sat up, shoving Stiles up with him.  Now that they weren't worried about missing out on conversations from the front, Derek didn't mind his head  being seen over the back of the bench seat as much as he minded being caught lying down on the job.  Stiles sat up and drew to the back of the cage, mirroring Derek's position from slightly behind the werewolf.

"Maybe when we're home we should start it around that Peter's the alpha," Stiles muttered. "Solve like half the world's problems next time somebody gets this brilliant idea."

Derek huffed, slightly amused by the inane suggestion, but not distracted from the back gate of the truck.  Held back by the light thrum of electricity around him, he couldn't do a full shift but Stiles saw fanged canines.  It made him feel a little better that at least one of them was armed.  Then the gate opened and Derek growled, startling Stiles though he knew he should have expected it.

"Shit," Stiles said on a breath as the gate opened to show the two hunters standing ready with actual hunting rifles.  The kind for big game, where the bullet went in small and came out the other side approximately the size of Los Angeles.

Derek seemed a little more patient once he saw the weapons.  Stiles took that to mean they were back to waiting for a screw-up.  Which was fine with him because a panic attack was approaching the surface and he could really use a minute to keep from losing his mind.

"So this is how it's gonna go," said the bigger of the two armed men.  Big, burly, shaved head redneck that looked like the guy on the box of toilet bowl cleaner.  Stiles made the mental note to switch household product brands when he got home.  "Hale here gets out first.  No rushing the door, got that?" the man asked.

"Damn, take all the fun out of it," Stiles returned dryly.  Nobody paid him any attention and the cage electricity was flipped off.  Stiles realized it was probably wired into the truck battery and was a great way to require a call to AAA for a jump start.  He eyed the box by the latch, deciding to check it when he got out.  As soon as the door was opened, Derek moved out of the cage with a grace Stiles didn't know was possible in the situation.  But - _god_ \- it was so nice to be able to stretch his legs a little as the extra body made the exit.  

Neither of them were expecting the speed of the attack that tipped Derek from the truck gate and face first into the gravel road.  Reflex sent Stiles ducking from the blur of movement outside.  When he looked out again, the bigger of the two hunters had a knee to Derek's spine and a rifle muzzle to the back of his skull.  After the guaranteed whiplash from the car accident, Stiles knew that had to hurt.  Except for the part where, unlike Stiles and his massive headache, Derek was already completely recovered from the accident. It fell under the category of "reasons werewolves aren't fair" and Stiles added a little mental kick in the ass to the werewolf currently down on his luck.  

Stiles was aware of many things in that moment: his back hurt, his neck hurt, his head was trying to break in half starting over his right temple - which felt like it already had split,- and the second hunter with the high caliber weapon he aimed at Stiles, all too ready to actually put a hole in Stiles' head.  In light of that list, Stiles stayed exactly where he was, his traitorous vision seeing nothing except the bright white light outside reflecting off the muzzle of the rifle.  It was close to a minute before he saw Derek stand up again, his arms behind his back.  Stiles swore under his breath when he saw Derek's eyes glowing blue off the parking area's security lights.

"Next?" The invitation was accompanied by a classic, though entirely unsafe, jerk of the rifle.  Stiles was waved out of his hiding hole and he didn't manage it anywhere near as skillfully as Derek.  He ended up on the ground voluntarily, through his own clumsy flailing as he tried to avoid the trick that had been used on Derek.  The two hunters found it hilarious and didn't hassle Stiles too much as they cuffed his hands behind his back.  He slouched in the exact spot where he was pulled to his feet and didn’t step a toe out of line.  He and Derek were both out of their weight class with these monsters and it was really, really hard to argue with rifles that big.  Really.

They stood in a gravel parking area attached to a barn-like house with big white halogen light blinding them from the eaves.  The circular driveway was otherwise surrounded by tall trees that blocked almost all outside light.  Stiles knew the sky was up there somewhere but damned if he could prove it to anyone just then.  He felt the warning echo in his chest when he tried to breathe and risked edging closer to Derek to chase it off.  Derek glanced at him but let it go as Stiles subtly crowded into his fighting space.  There was a weird look on his face, which made Stiles practice thought-projection: “ _Yes, this is what the beginning of a panic attack sounds like, you asshole who is so obviously listening to my breathing right now instead of kicking bad-guy-ass._ ”  The message was not received, surprising nobody.  Instead, the barn door entry rattled open enough for a person to step through out of sheer absolute blackness like some horror movie, and Stiles choked on the urge to warn Derek.  Not like the werewolf couldn’t see better than him in the dark or anything.

The nefarious ugly monster that emerged from the barn was, it turned out, just a thirty-something yuppie who wasn’t quite tall enough to look Derek in the eye.  He could pass for a hipster or for a college professor, jeans and sandals and the same taste in shirts and overshirts as Stiles.  The guy came complete with the long hair that was far too curly to be practical for the hairstyle and could only be worn tied back.  He looked about as threatening as Deaton, which meant that Stiles was seventy-percent certain he was deadly.

“Here’s your Hale, Hutch,” said Mr. Clean.  Hutch nodded, keenly interested in Derek all lit up by the buzzing halogen lamp.  Hutch walked right up to stand in front of Derek, only the briefest looks exchanged with the two hunters.   Mr. Clean clamped down hard on Derek, using the handcuffs to set the werewolf off balance and limit any attack position.  It didn’t help that Stiles was elbow to elbow with the guy and he backed off in silent apology.  Stiles came up short of the other hunter’s rifle and stood still again, barely daring to breathe.  He stood by and watched as Hutch grabbed Derek’s chin and actually checked the man’s teeth.  Derek was too stunned to react at all.  He and Stiles wore matching looks of bug-eyed and horrified.  Hutch looked merely satisfied with whatever he saw.  Seriously?  Why wasn’t he _impressed_?  The guy had his fingers in a werewolf’s mouth and they came out still attached.   _That_ impressed the hell out of Stiles.

Other prodding happened and Derek tried to dodge it while not losing the healthy respect he had for the rifle pointed at the base of his skull.  And then... Hutch turned his attention to Stiles and the light bulb clicked on in the kid’s head.  He, Stiles, last heir and virgin of the Stilinski name, was in the middle of a monetary exchange, for his person, physical and emotional being that he was, in which he was guaranteed no profits.  It was, at that moment, a bad idea to mention that a) he wasn’t a werewolf, and b) he was the son of a county sheriff and c) he had been dragged across state lines, d) into the Sierra Nevadas, e) against his will.  So instead, he let out a mouthful of swearing and the second the man touched his face to check his teeth, Stiles kicked out with some serious intent to damage.

“Stiles!” barked Derek before he was kicked into another face-plant on the driveway.  Stiles barely heard him, too busy being choked around the neck by the hand that had a moment earlier been about to poke at his teeth.  The other hunter held Stiles braced backward and off balance by the handcuffs and Hutch loomed in his face, the man suddenly a larger physical presence now that he was single-handedly blocking Stiles’ efforts at breathing.  Hutch didn’t poke at his teeth, but he seemed to be able to do whatever assessing he needed to do from where he was.

“What the hell is this?” he asked.  The question was directed at the hunters but Hutch still stared at Stiles.

“The beta we told you about,” said Mr. Clean.  Stiles suddenly gulped in air and all but collapsed on the hunter behind him as Hutch let him go.  He pointed their attention to Stiles.

“That’s a kid!” he informed them.  “And you two are screwed six ways from tuesday.  There’s been alerts about him all day. I got a _text message._ ”

The hunter supporting Stiles suddenly dropped him.  Stiles was strangely okay with that as he curled up on his side and tried to remember how to breathe.

Hutch started outlining the other small problem with their plan.  “Look at his face, idiots.  He’s got bruises...”    

“They were in a car accident...” said the guy who had dropped Stiles.

“Yes.  And he _looks_ like he’s been in one,” said Hutch.  “Hale doesn’t.  Conclusion?  There’s one wolf here, and one regular, normal, kid.  Of the _Human_ variety.”

The implication that Stiles’ friends weren’t human rankled and he started to sit up to defend Werewolf Rights, but thought better of it.  He contented himself with a scowl.  

“Dumbasses,” he said quietly.  Derek growled to try to hide it for him. Otherwise, quiet sank in around them, just as heavy as the cold, damp mountain air.  Hutch was letting the hunters come to their own conclusions now, and the idiots were coming to them.  Unattended, Stiles tried to sit up and pay attention again. Derek was still at the direct wrong-end of the rifle but strangely, finding out that Stiles wasn’t a werewolf had taken him off the immediate target-practice list.

“We agreed on Hale...” Mr. Clean finally said to Hutch.  That got him laughed at.

“I’m not a party to this,” said Hutch, motioning toward Stiles.  “You want to make your profit, fine, but it won’t be from me.”

“How noble,” muttered Stiles.  

“Shut up!” yelled the four men around him.  Derek glared at him, even though Derek was the one being poked in the face by sharp rocks.  Stiles snorted and waved his hands, giving up.

Hutch idly backhanded Mr. Clean in the shoulder.

“Give me your phone.  And get them up,” he said, calm as anything.

“Why?” came the predictable question, even though the orders were followed.  Hutch played with the man’s iPhone while Derek and Stiles were hauled to their feet.

“Let him loose for a minute,” Hutch said, jerking his chin toward Derek.  Stiles narrowed his eyes, completely and absolutely confused as the hunters reluctantly complied.  Hutch finished messing with the phone and looked over at Derek.

“You know this kid?” he asked.  Derek didn’t answer.  Hutch waited.  He made some impressive impatient faces that Derek eventually caved to. Or it was the gun poking him in the spine that he caved to, Stiles couldn’t tell from his angle.

“Yes,” Derek said. It clearly pained him to say it.  There were probably a couple of reasons for the pain, but Stiles knew the largest was approximately the size and shape of a teenager named Stiles who happened to exist at all.  He shrugged it off.  Hutch stepped back away from Stiles, pointed Derek’s attention to the bruising on Stiles’ forehead from when his head had slammed into the jeep’s steering wheel.

“Cut his face,” said Hutch.  Derek blinked at Hutch, not understanding any more of the request than Stiles did.  Hutch repeated the gesture.

“Here’s your choice: You cut the kid’s face, _and_ anywhere else he got bruised up by a _car accident_ , or I’ll do it.”

Stiles jumped as Hutch, the mild-mannered-hipster-yuppie-with-tree-hugger-hair, pulled out from a baggy pocket a switchblade that did some impressive twists before snapping into the tool’s usual functioning shape. It clicked then: Hutch wanted to make Stiles look more the part of a beta, slower to heal from alpha-inflicted wounds.  He took a step toward Derek out of self-preservation.  As Derek’s hesitation dragged on, Hutch handed the cell phone back to Mr. Clean.

“I put the address in here.  You go back around the lake, you ask for Mark, and he’ll take them off your hands,” Hutch said.

“Both of them?” asked Mr. Clean.  Hutch nodded, stepping forward to grab the unattended handcuff chain between Stiles’ wrists at his back.

“Yeah, when I’m done he will, no questions asked,” came Hutch’s less than friendly response.  Stiles squawked at being dragged away from Derek.  He caught a strange look on the werewolf’s usually expressionless face and then didn’t have time to duck.  Derek took two steps in and pulled a punch for Stiles’ forehead, leaving the requested cuts across the bruise.  Stiles fainted protectively over his right side where he had slammed into the gear shift earlier and Derek growled at him.  Hutch and the hunters backed off, the rifles raised and fingers on triggers as Stiles had a stare-down with a werewolf  in the middle of the driveway.  Derek’s expression hadn’t changed any, all stubbled jaw and judging eyebrows, but he was wasting time asking permission and Stiles wasn’t oblivious to that.  But the last thing he needed was to bleed out in the woods because Derek missed.  And the claws hurt like a sonuvabitch.

“Okay, fine!” Stiles suddenly shouted.  The shouting actually made him feel a little better.  He stood taller and squared up with Derek rather than try to hide his side out of reach.  He hardly had time to blink before Derek stepped in and slashed at his side.  Stiles crumpled over the injury and Derek stepped back at the rifle suddenly in his face.

“Get ‘em out.  Go,” called Hutch. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t mention to anyone the part about this kid not being a wolf.  Alpha,” he said, pointing at Derek.  Then he pointed to Stiles. “And beta.  You stepped in it, gentlemen.  This is probably your only chance out of it.”

Stiles was hauled to his feet by the yanking of the handcuffs again.  He complained loudly at the tactics but was completely not surprised when he wound up back in the wolf cage in the back of the truck.  Go ahead; try that at home with five werewolf-supplied gashes bleeding out over the right ribs and three over the temple.  Derek was kept out a bit longer, then let inside with a valet to hold the cage door for him.  Stiles gave him the dirtiest look he could manage when he realized the werewolf hadn’t had to put the handcuffs back on.

“So not fair,” Stiles groused.

“Shut up,” returned Derek.  He sat up at the front of the cage and waited with an alarming patience as it was closed.  Stiles kneed at him but it was completely ineffective.  Derek just caught his knee to hold him still, pinned on his side against the bars.  To Stiles’ shock, the handcuff key was pushed through the cage and Derek caught it.  Then the electricity buzzed through the bars and Stiles yipped and rolled away from it.  Derek let the cuffs loose and, as Stiles pushed himself up to check on his side, did a credible imitation of a wolf turned into a mothering hen.

Stiles lost his overshirt to the project of stopping the blood. One sleeve was torn off and tied around his head - Stiles somehow refrained from making any _Rambo_ references - to help staunch the bleeding there while the rest was used on his side. Derek even pulled some of the stinging pain out, helping the bruising and the breathing that it had been playing havoc with.  His expression never changed the whole time.  That’s when Stiles realized the determined anger was really concern.  It surprised him, on some level, and he caught Derek’s arm.

“Dude. I’m okay,” he whispered.  There was really no need, now that the truck was rumbling down the road and the radio was going louder than before.  

“No,” Derek said, still calm in tone and hard to read.  Especially in the freaking dark, why was it always dark when there were kidnappings in progress, Stiles wanted to know.  Derek looked up at him, shook his head briefly.  “We’re not okay.”

***


	5. Chapter 5

Since learning what Peter Hale had done, and why, Melissa could count the number of times she had been around the man at all just on one hand.  None of those times had she been alone and tired.  Melissa knew quite well that she was taking a risk. But the children -okay fine, teenagers - she cared about were at risk. She could talk to the werewolf, adult-to-adult, for ten minutes.  It helped that she had Kyle’s service weapon.  That had been a funny conversation: _You’re going out this late?_  Yes.   _Can I-_  No, you can’t come along.   _It’s dangerous to go alone.  At least take this._  And that was how her ex-husband had lined up the perfect blackmail-crime of opportunity, without Melissa having to say a thing.  So if Peter presented Melissa with the opportunity, it was on his own head.   _Bullets_ from an alpha would sting a lot more, and take longer to heal, right?  She was just there to talk.

Melissa stood at the door to Derek’s apartment for the second time that day, gathering her will power.  She was tired, she was drained and exhausted, and the thought of raising her hand to knock seemed ridiculous.  She was there to visit a werewolf.  When he wanted to answer the door, he would; whether she knocked or not, Peter knew there was someone standing at it.  In the meantime, Melissa tried to tap into her last resources for the day.  She gave a little huff of annoyance at the werewolf’s poor hospitality and, lo and behold, the door opened.  Like magic.  Melissa managed a slightly less annoyed expression as Peter leaned on the door in front of her.  He seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed so late in the evening, not the least bit concerned for his missing nephew.

"You're back already," Peter said with a wide, welcoming smile.  Melissa managed to lift the corners of her lips but didn’t quite reach his level of excitement at the newsflash.

"Yep."

Peter’s smile didn’t fade.  "I'm sure it's not because you missed me."

"Well, it is _about_ you." Manners dictated Melissa at least try to be polite, and she did manage a smile at the play.  Peter fell for it, whether he saw through it or not.  He stepped back from the double doors and held one side open for her.

"A step in the right direction.  Please do come in from the night before some disturbing monster can change your mind."

Melissa kept him in sight as she wandered inside.  Her coat was tucked over her arm, hiding the fact that her other hand was tucked in her purse around a gun.  "Have you heard from Derek?"

Peter shook his head and looked appropriately disturbed by the reminder.  "No, but the good news is that neither Cora or I have gone through any restorative alpha changes, either.  So presumably the boy is still alive."

Melissa blinked at him, somehow surprised by the frank discussion of his status as a werewolf in public.  Apparently Melissa’s association with the pack no longer qualified her as public.  She was right in the thick of things, and Peter’s open expression told her that he at least was fine with that.  She managed an actually genuine smile that time.  "Thank you, that makes me feel better anyway."

The man obliged with a nod that was somehow the same effect as a bow.  "How else can I help toward that end?"

Damn, he was good.  If Melissa was expecting a false-front, she wasn’t seeing it at all.  She knew better than to assume she wasn’t being played, but at least Peter was good at hiding it.  She huffed a sigh and risked letting the handgun slip back into the holster inside her purse that she had left it in.  Female intuition said she could play back.

"Well, I was actually wondering if you wouldn't mind helping me handle Scott's father..." she said.  She hadn’t arrived yet at exactly how to handle Kyle, but that was why she was there and she wanted to open it up to discussion.  Of course Peter immediately went for the obvious question.

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head at her.  "Handle how?"

Melissa absently worked a stress-ache out of her neck, made a slightly pouty face as she tried to consider the answer as a pop quiz she should have been better prepared for. "Well..."

She stopped when she caught the look on Peter’s face, something between glazed-over and amused.  Melissa narrowed her eyes at him.  Peter just smiled.  "Mrs. McCall. Are you trying to seduce me?"

Melissa straightened up quickly and folded her hands under her jacket.  "Unfortunately no,” she said, meeting his saccharin-sweet tone with one to match.  The idea hit then and she shot him a hopeful grin.  “But you're welcome to seduce my ex-husband if he's at all your type.”

Peter looked disappointed, but intrigued by the fact that she was offering him anything at all.  Melissa shrugged and shook her head, treading carefully forward with the conversation.

“I just want him politely, quietly, and discreetly... run out of town?" she said, hopeful.  Peter nodded, let out a long sigh.

"Not a dinner date then?" he asked.

Melissa nodded quickly.  She was so not going there with Peter Hale ever again.  "I'm afraid Scott would be tempted to disrupt that and things would get ugly. I think it's best we regard that ship as sailed."

The werewolf shrugged and headed for the desk by the window, inviting her along with a wave.  He looked like he had a few ideas to start hashing out.  "Can't blame a man for trying."

Melissa shot him a wry grin and hugged her purse more carefully to her side under her jacket.  "And yet there are many reasons why we do."

 

***

 

The temperature had dropped and the two bodies at the back of the old Suburban had done a good job of fogging up the back gate.  Derek sat by the window and radiated heat and anger and Stiles just curled up at the other end to will the pain in his ribs to stop.  Derek had never witnessed Stiles so quiet and still, and every time he looked over at Stiles it was like he expected Stiles to have grown a second head.

“It’s times like these I really hate you and Scott,” Stiles muttered, half-hearted in his effort to rile Derek into leaving him alone.  “Can nobody remember that Stiles can still break?”

Instead of the argument Stiles was goading for, Derek looked away and glared bright blue lasers at the back of the driver’s head.  That worried Stiles.  Why wasn’t Derek an alpha?  Who had taken over?  Stiles kicked lightly at Derek’s shin, as though he expected the man to read the questions in his mind.  Derek set his jaw and didn’t say anything.  He had apparently gotten over his issue with Stiles and personal space bubbles, so there was one positive takeaway from the dog-kennel experience: Stiles could kick Derek in the shin and not have his head bounced off a wall for it.

The truck slowed down and the annoying bounce over the rough roads eventually stopped.  The windows in the back were too fogged up to see out of, but even Stiles could hear the pound of twangy country-rock from somewhere outside.  He sat up, expecting trouble was about to show up at the door again.  The two hunters got out of the rig, with a brief growl at their prisoners to sit and shut up, and both doors slammed so loudly that Stiles’ ears reverberated. When the gate behind their cage didn’t open up to dump them out into the cold, Stiles perked up a bit.  He edged around Derek and started poking his fingers through the cage bars to reach for the switch he had seen when they were out of the truck.  Derek tilted his head but didn’t say anything, turning his attention out the windows to keep watch.  There were a couple of times that Stiles hissed at the light sting of the low level of electricity, mostly anticipating a higher shock that didn’t happen.

“Ha! Yes!”  Stiles did keep his voice down but he cheered all the same as the switch tugged and the power cut.  He scrabbled back out of Derek’s way and made a shooing motion toward Derek.  “There. Go. Kick. Out! Out!”

Derek sized up the cage door and frowned, not nearly as enthusiastic at the prospect as Stiles.  Still, he moved back and braced to kick the cage door out.  It kicked back, physically shoving Derek sprawling into Stiles.

“Mountain ash,” Stiles realized even as Derek reminded him.  Stiles curled his head to his knees and pounded against them lightly.

“Hunters screw up, but that doesn’t make them stupid,” Derek said.

“I got a lot more colorful words for them,” Stiles muttered. Derek edged back out of his space and looked like a kicked puppy.

“Maybe if you tried...” he began.  Stiles rolled his eyes.

“Somebody _cut_ me to hide an _accident_ , remember?” he said, snappish.  He pointed lazily toward the door that was still throbbing from the mountain ash-supplied special FX.  “And even if I wasn’t in _pain_ and _hungry_ and _tired_ , that whole door is hinged top to bottom.  I couldn’t kick that open.  Not like you could.”

“Shut up,” said Derek with no heat at all.  Stiles couldn’t pin down what was eating at Derek but the man seemed closer to giving up than he had ever seen him, and they had seen some scary shit.

“Whatever,” said Stiles.  He gave a valiant effort at rallying the troops again.  “It’s just hunters.  They’ll kick my ass and send me home like they always do.  No magic, no mystery, just an overabundance of rednecks.”

“I don’t know what planet you live on, but around here, the rednecks are the scariest things since _Alien_ ,” returned Derek.  He turned his attention back to Stiles, looking like he was just inches away from reaching out to shake the kid but knew the cage was too small to let him get enough impact.  “You shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here.  But of the two of us, the only one dead as soon as they catch on is you.”

Stiles tucked his chin into the crook of an elbow, still folded up around his knees. “I got past the darach.”

“I can’t fight bullets, Stiles.  You can’t outrun them, I can’t block them,” Derek said.  He rattled the cage at his back.  “I can’t even get out of this box.  And Scott’s not here.  No one knows where we are.  Do you get that?  I can’t protect you.”

The admission startled Stiles and he tucked his chin a little further, refusing to look over at Derek.  He was suddenly reminded of Isaac’s pitiful face reporting Derek had kicked him out.  All the problems that had come up when Boyd and Erica disappeared.  The absolute emotional shitstorm that followed Boyd’s death. And why the hell was Stiles having to think about death right now?  It was the last thing that could ever be useful under the circumstances.  He rubbed at his face because he refused to acknowledge tears, and if Derek was using his super-nose again, Stiles would punch him if he said anything.  Derek just gave an awkward shrug and his hands flailed a little where they rested over his knees.

“The best chance you’ve got is if you actually were a beta.  I can give you the bite and...”

“No,” said Stiles.

“We don’t know what we’re going to find out there,” Derek reminded him. “It could help get you home.”

Stiles kept his eyes lowered, nervous energy creeping in with the cold so he rocked from heel to toe and fidgeted.  “You’re not an alpha, dude.  It won’t work.”

Derek looked confused.  “What?”

Stiles waved at his own eyes before pointing a finger at Derek.  “Blue.  Not red. Not alpha.”

Derek sagged against the cage. “Shit.”

Stiles nodded, suddenly drained.  “Don’t let them see you mad or we’re really screwed,” said Stiles.  He motioned to the cuts over his eyes.  “If they know about the alpha thing, they’ll know about your eyes.”

Derek nodded, looking miserable.  “Yeah, that shouldn’t be too hard, should it.”

“Practice your zen, man.”  Stiles leaned back to ease some of the pressure on his ribs.  “So is Scott it then?” he asked, idle curiosity turned into the world’s best subject change for the sake of his sanity.  “Did you and him have it out or something this week?”

Derek frowned, not following Stiles’ logic at all.  He shook his head.  “No.  You were there,” he said. “I told you then.  Melissa’s the alpha.”

Stiles closed his eyes and rolled his head back against the cage.  It would figure that his best friend’s mom would stand between him and the easy-out of a life-or-death scenario.  Payback for all those years corrupting Scott.  Karma could be a real bitch sometimes, Stiles realized.

 

***

 

Chris didn’t exactly know where he was going in the dark, but with the help of his cell phone GPS, they only got lost once on the way. It was on the south side of the lake, around into Nevada a good few miles, and Stilinski swore blue fire when he realized he really was going to have to get Kyle’s help to sort this one out if Stiles was tangled up in it. He was in somebody else’s territory and anything that could result in legal action would be hit with fine tooth combs and tangle terribly on the fact that his badge would trump any action he took as Stiles’ father.

“He better not be here,” growled Stilinski.  Both men were tired and stressed and had been in a car together too long. So when Chris pulled up at a roadside bar and grill for the over 21 crowd, with a big warehouse back behind it, Stilinski was not impressed.  Chris shrugged.  He pointed to the cars in the lot that spilled out into the wide roadway.  

“They’re not here for the bar scene,” he said.

“What then?” asked Stilinski.  “We’re here now. You can tell me.”

Chris pointed to the warehouse.  “There’s always been rumors of places like these.  Everything's technically legal-”

“Except for the part where my son had to be kidnapped to potentially be involved in them,” prompted the sheriff, not buying anything being legal at all.  Chris spelled it out for him.

“Werewolves aren’t real.  They don’t exist.  So there’s no law saying they can’t get in the ring and kill each other with their non-existent, mythical teeth.  Or be killed when some up and coming MMA fighter wants to sharpen his skills off the professional circuit.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Stilinski stared at the building.  Chris shook his head.

“This is against the Code and damn near everything I believe in.  Kate loved things like this, turns out she got that from our father,” he said.  He shook the awkward family relations aside.  “I found out about this one two years back.  Kate wanted to start one up somewhere.  She thought she could get Hale into it then. So I think maybe someone else had the same idea.  Otherwise we would have found a body by now.”

Stilinski crumpled back into the passenger seat as the engine idled.  As they sat in a parking spot across the street, a red and black suburban crawled into the bar and grill’s crowded parking area and turned off to go to the back lot behind the metal warehouse building.  It didn’t make Stilinski feel any better about the state of humanity when the parking lot promised the warehouse would be standing room only and it was still adding to the head count.  There had to be something they could call in.  A health code violation, fire hazard, something.

Stilinski looked over at Chris, not sure what to think.  “You really believe there’s a chance my son is in there?” he asked.  Chris shrugged.

“I’ve got the same intel you’ve got,” said Chris. “I’ve got two men who’ve disappeared on me, who I can usually count on when I need them. I don’t think they’re behind it, but I think they know something they don’t want me finding out.  I’ve got contacts who won’t return my calls because my area’s too hot.  And we’ve got Derek Hale, without a territory.  He’s little better than Omega status and easy pickings for a hunter money-hungry enough for one of these.  If Stiles was helping him out...”

“They’d think he was pack,” finished Stilinski.  He scrubbed at his face.  The adrenaline was kicking in again, chasing out the urge to take a nap.  He waved toward the warehouse.  “Can you get us in?”

The hunter hesitated. Then he nodded.  

In the space of five minutes, they were in the warehouse, surrounded by fighters, mountain men, very monied tourists, and to Stilinski’s dismay, men who looked like they were accustomed to wearing the uniform of the local cops when they weren’t attending questionably legal death-matches in their off hours.

“Not much to do in Tahoe, huh?” he said to Chris over the din.  “Can’t stick to the casinos, gambling isn't good enough...”

Chris scrunched his face and looked over at him like Stilinski just wasn’t getting it.  He waved to the caged fighting ring in the center of the warehouse.  “What do you think this is?”

For the second time since walking into the warehouse, Stilinski felt like he might be sick. Chris’ expression said that he could almost understand; and, Stilinski realized, god forbid it ever happen to Chris’ daughter for hanging around with the same crowd.  He clapped a hand to the sheriff’s shoulder.  “Just a few rounds. We’ll see what we find.”


	6. Chapter 6

When the hunters came back, they got in the front of the truck and started her up again. Stiles sighed, wishing he had left the cage's electric switch on to kill the truck battery. He blew that opportunity.

"Now what?" he called out to the men up front. Derek cut him a warning glare and Stiles waved him off.

"Now you're somebody else's problem," came the response from the front.

Stiles turned how he sat to better see where the truck was going. It drove into some kind of barn through a set of wide open doors that were waiting for them.  The lights inside were just white and blue Christmas lights strung around poles, but it was easier to see. Only once all doors out of the barn were closed did the hunters open up the back gate of the suburban and unfasten the cage latch.  Derek went first again and this time didn't end up on his nose for the trouble.  He stood off to the side and actually had to help Stiles out. The hunters kept their distance from Derek, so Stiles stuck with him.

There was another hunter with them.  Stiles gawked.  They all dressed alike.  Every single one of them. Urban safari, para military, or just plain rednecks in flannel.  And none of them had the brains to try for Chris Argent's fashion sense.

"Jeezus, they're clones," muttered Stiles.  Derek elbowed his side to make him shut up.  Stiles caught sight of the electric cattle prod at the new hunter's side and kept his comments to himself.

"You two want food?" the man asked.  Stiles perked up at that.  He was drained; at this point he didn't care if the only food on the table was poisoned.

"Yes!" he said quickly, before Sourwolf could impose caution on his experience as a sold-man. "Yes, we need food."

"Stick with me then," the stranger said.  To Stiles' shock and Derek's suspicion, the man turned his back on them and walked away.  Derek followed quickly, Stiles lagging behind as he tried to figure out what exactly had happened.  He caught Derek's shoulder, tugged him to a slow down.

"What did I miss?" he asked once he got Derek to walk beside him.  They were out in the open air now, outside the barn, and they weren't running.  Stiles wanted food, but he wanted a shot at freedom more. Derek looked like he suspected a trap, but he still followed the new hunter.

"He's a wolf," he said to Stiles.  Stiles officially no longer liked this plan.

"Then we should go... Now.  Not later," he whispered.  The man stopped then and held open a door for them to another building, this one larger and professionally lit up.  It buzzed of modern tech inside, and very loud music.  Stiles definitely didn't want to go in it.  Derek hesitated too.  The wolf ahead of them flashed red eyes.

"You want to run, feel free," the man said. "But we know the area.  And we can outrun you.  Or you be sociable and sit down to eat a meal, we sort you out."

Stiles scooted inside the building.  Everything got louder, including his headache.  Derek followed on his heels.  The man waited by another door and looked over at where Stiles limped along.  He looked to Derek and shook his head.

"You have no idea how much I wish I'd killed those morons," the werewolf guard said.  Derek blinked, surprised.

"Don't let us stop you," said Stiles. "Go ahead, we'll wait...  After food, anyway."

It was clear Stiles wasn't who the man had been speaking to.  The strange werewolf set his jaw - was that just a wolf thing? Really? - and shook his head.

"Welcome to Camp Whackamole, gents.  You earn your keep or you don't get kept," he said.  He waved Derek and Stiles toward the door ahead of him. "I'll just wait out here for you."

Stiles wanted to offer up that he didn't want kept, but he was getting the impression that there was a time and a place for proving he was a real live talking boy and right now wasn't it.  He reached forward and pushed open the door, not liking the general vibe and wanting it over with.  The other wolf pushed Derek in after him.

The noise was ridiculous.  The door closed them into a dark alcove that narrowed down to a bright, doorless exit on the other side.  Stiles had seen enough TV to know what it was and he hung back to try to get back out the door.  It locked on Derek's heels.

"I don't want food this bad," Stiles told Derek with a calm he just didn't feel.  Derek waved him forward.

"Stay away from the door," he warned.  He seemed to have caught on, almost glad for someone to kill.  "And don't get near the fight."

"This is nobody's definition of protecting me!" Stiles called after him.  Still, he followed, just to see what the damage would be.

 

***

 

The stomping of the crowd, impatient for the next fight, was rowdy, more like a county fair rodeo than people who dressed in clothes that cost two months of Stilinski's salary.  Tahoe was a great area, natural and woodland and clean.   He and his son had been up camping at the lake many times over the years.  The casinos on the Nevada side of the lake attracted lots of money, all sorts of creative, beautiful people.  But this was a side of the international tourist-beacon that the sheriff had never seen before and didn't like at all. Blood lust and money barely contained in four walls.

The first of the fighters stepped out and worked the crowd up into a din that left Stilinski shielding his ears. They settled down after that, calling for blood by the time the second and then third fighter walked into the cage.

Stilinski nearly fell off the tiered bleachers they were positioned on.  He recognized the third fighter.  Chris  had caught the sheriff's shoulder the second he saw Derek Hale step off the ramp.

"Come on, we gotta go," Chris said.  They had the info they were looking for, they should have left then and made a plan. But the cage closed up then, the heavy gate swinging shut on the backside of a fourth fighter. Neither man moved from their place on the steps when they spotted Stiles, bloody and ragged.  Chris caught hold of Stilinski's arm, apparently afraid the sheriff would do something stupid, like attack the cage.  Or maybe just faint.  Stilinski was silently grateful for the grounding restraint.  Stiles looked like hell.  The crowd took it as part of the course, a gimmick, showmanship, but Stilinski saw a completely different show.

"Stay here," Chris told him, loud enough to make it over the noise but just barely.  The sheriff nodded vaguely.  He wasn't leaving until he was certain his son made it out of the fighters' cage alive.

 

***

 

Chris Argent made his way down to the front of the crowd, confident and sure in his footing as he dodged drunks and idiots.  There was a wall around the edge of the seating area, a support for spectators to lean on and cheer from without letting them fall into the walkway around the heavy metal cage. It wasn’t chainlink, it was welded rebar in a circle.  There were large gaps between the bars, but not enough room for even Stiles’ bean-pole frame to fit through.  The fight was brightly lit, the audience in all but pitch blackness.

Standing just five feet from Stiles, Chris knew the boy wouldn’t be able to see him any better than he could have been expected to hear him.  Derek was doing a good job keeping the other fighters interested and busy - it was supposed to be a team fight - and Stiles just tried to stay out of their way.  Unless Derek went wolf, the boys were definitely out of their depth against trained mixed martial artists who lived for their art.  And in a fight like this, the other fighters wouldn’t know when to stop.  It was probably why they left Stiles alone; he looked exactly the opposite of the part he was supposed to play in that cage.

Chris had gone toe to toe with Stiles Stilinski before.  He knew that for all the kid acted like a bumbling idiot who couldn’t walk a straight line sober, Stiles had a solid steel backbone and dealt with whatever was thrown at him without running.  Even when he should have run, Stiles was too focused, or stupid, to do it. He needed an edge.  In a no-holds-barred match, usually weapons weren’t allowed in the ring.  But in a match with a werewolf - one exercising an amazing amount of self-control by refusing to shift in a dangerous fight - there could be no rules against weapons; every man in the ring was expected to be one.

Without calling any attention to his presence, Chris stayed back from the round of light.  The shadows hid him well and no one could tell where the long-bladed knife came from as it clattered onto the cement floor just feet from Stiles.  Everyone in the crowd saw it though as the kid snatched up the Leatherneck.  The crowd approved with a roar and stomp of feet.  Stiles had his edge now.  And whether he wanted to be or not, he was in the fight the second the black steel of the tactical knife fit into his hand.  

At least now Stiles had a chance in hell when Derek’s luck ran out.

 

***

 

When the knife clattered to the ground, Stilinski startled.  He knew where the knife had come from.  And a part of him wanted to know why the hell Chris hadn’t thrown Stiles a gun.  Stilinski’s resolve cracked and he pounced down the steps to track Chris.  If he could get up next to the fight, so could the sheriff.  The hunter found him first and pulled him into the spot against the wall.

“This isn’t a lacrosse game,” Chris reminded him.  “No cheering.”

Stilinski nodded, his attention glued to the fight.  It was nothing like a lacrosse game.  For one thing, his son wasn’t playing.  Stiles kept the knife tucked in his palm and back along his forearm, not out to stab people, but instead deflecting blows.  The fighter that had broke off from Derek was a lot more hesitant to attack when Stiles blocked every move with the long side of a knife.  He interrupted Derek’s fight multiple times and the older man worked off of it, the distraction working to their advantage.  Stiles trusted Derek to watch his back and the werewolf did a damn good job of it.  When Stiles and Derek both happened to send their opponents to the floor at the same time, Stilinski let out a whoop along with the rest of the surprised crowd.  He felt Chris off of his shoulder, judging the hell out of him, but Stilinski was too amazed his son was still in it.  That needed celebrated.

The crowd’s noises changed after that; money was on the line and the fight went back and forth with no clear winner.  People started to worry about their wagers on the unknown fighters.  The sheriff of Beacon Hills never ceased to worry about his son and went a full shade grayer within three minutes.

Another few minutes in and Stiles got backed into the bars and was stuck.  The fighter who cornered him kicked his feet out from under him and sent the teenager to the ground.  Stiles still had the knife, but it didn’t have the range that the fighter’s legs did.

Derek sent his fighter into the concrete then. It seemed like retaliation, a declaration that the werewolf was done tracking two fights.  With his fighter down for the count, Derek took down the other just as neat, with an effective Hulk-smash, only less green and a lot more human-shaped.   

And then the fight was over, by some miracle.  The crowd around Stilinski and Chris let out an angry call as Derek helped Stiles up to his feet.

“We need to get them out,” said Stilinski.  He started to push past Chris toward where the fighters would leave the ring; there had to be an exit that way.  Argent caught his arm and made him wait.  

“Stiles just cost this crowd a lot of money,” he said, in the sheriff’s space to make sure they weren’t overheard.  “He’s safer here until they leave.”

“Fine,” said Stilinski, reluctant.  It was stalling.  But they needed a better plan than “Drop into the pit and pull Stiles out” and that was the only thing Stilinski could wrap his mind around just then.  It was too dangerous to try, but... his son was _right there_.  He looked down to see Derek actually helping Stiles leave the ring, the kid’s blue t-shirt blood red and shredded at the bottom.  A man in khakis stood by the gate, watching their exit closely.  Stilinski saw the baton hanging at the belt at the man’s side.  There was nothing legal about that fight.   _Nothing_.  And Stilinski knew from the makeup of the crowd that he could call whoever he wanted asking for help and no one would agree with him.  When this was all over, Stilinski was going to need as much counseling as his son would.

 

***

 

“Well.  That was awkward.”  The werewolf hunter walked into the room Derek and Stiles had been escorted to without the slightest warning.  The pair sat in a corner of something like a storage room, surrounded by mats and stacked up extra chairs, and an apparently never ending supply of towels.  They had gone through a pile of them already as they cleaned up.  Derek was exhausted and a mess, but healing.  Stiles was just a mess, but at least he was still alive.  It defied all rational expectation, but the kid was still going.  Derek angled between their visitor and Stiles.

"Awkward is not what that was," said Stiles.

"You weren't supposed to win," said their keeper. "Things _became_ awkward."

Stiles had the good sense to shut up after that.  Derek didn't.  He rolled up onto his feet and stood eye to eye with the other wolf.  "The embarrassing part comes when you tell those guys they got their asses handed to them by a 17 year old kid who's half bled out and hasn't eaten all day."

"Uh... dude..." Stiles wedged himself further into the corner.  Derek kept up the staring match.

"We put wolves in to fight.  Not a kid," said the man in the hunter clothes.  "Thanks for telling us ahead of time.  You wanna know how much money we just lost?"

Derek's only response was to lift his chin, his lips curling up at the corners.  The other wolf jabbed him suddenly with the end of the sparking baton he held.  Derek stepped back to recover but still stared when there was no follow-up attack.  The other werewolf apparently didn't have the time.

"So.  No big deal.  We'll make it back later," he said.  It was obviously a very big deal, the man was just a natural with sarcasm.  "Next time we'll _tell_ you it's a wolf fight, clear up the confusion."

"There won't be a next time if we don't get food," said Derek.  He was still running on adrenaline and looking for a reason to turn the cattle prod back on the other man.

"Food is waiting," came the response.  "Hope your pet human can handle kibble."

"Uh... No? He can’t?" muttered Stiles.  Still, bruises and all, he shoved himself up against the wall to get to his feet and follow food.  Derek kept Stiles behind him, distanced from the other wolf.  

He had so many questions demanding answers, almost every one of them beginning with "WHY..." But Derek wouldn't let himself ask.  This version of the world was so much different than the one he knew.  He didn't want to know about it himself.  It was the not knowing that had put them in so far over their heads though and he blamed himself.  Stiles had books, but Derek had experience.  None of his experience could explain or predict where they were now, how he was supposed to keep himself alive, let alone a kid who couldn't defend himself against everything that could come at them.  All Derek could think to do was play along, look for a way out.  They still had a chance as long as they could keep their feet under them.

***


	7. Chapter 7

By Melissa’s standards, three AM was too early to be waking anyone.  She knew she needed to and wouldn’t let herself back out of it, but every part of her mothering instinct disapproved of her choice as she opened the door to Scott’s bedroom.  She flicked the light switch on, surprised to see the number of bodies that were piled around on pillows throughout the room.  There were three more teenagers now than had walked through the front door.  

Lydia was in the chair in the corner, in the lap of one of the twins - they were new, Melissa couldn’t keep their names straight yet unless the boys were talking - and curled up asleep against his shoulder.  Melissa saw the boy’s eyes flutter and held up a hand to wave.  He straightened up, even though he and Lydia were hardly the worst culprits in what any other parent would have interpreted to have been some kind of orgy.  Melissa had come to think of them more as puppy piles.  She had gotten somewhat used to it because the group stuck in piles even down in the living room when they got together.  Lydia kept her distance, but the others... well, Isaac’s head was on Scott’s stomach where her son had fallen asleep against the headboard, and Isaac puzzle-pieced in against Allison, who in turn was back to back with Danny, who had his arms wrapped around the other twin.  Cora Hale was curled away from Scott’s other side and Scott had his arm draped over her shoulder.  Scott, Allison and Cora were the only bodies that actually fit on the bed.  The other three were crowded in and their legs hung off the edge and could hardly be comfortable.  Melissa wanted a camera.  But she refused to buy Scott a bigger bed.

The group had drawn closer by inches over the last two weeks, the boys still standoffish with the twins, the girls still awkward with Cora.  But at the end of the day, when they were all in the same house, the sleeping arrangement didn’t change.  Scott blamed it on the tree, the nematon sacrifices he and Allison and Stiles had offered up, but it was a slowly expanding pack.  It had happened four times already in two weeks.  The only significant difference was that this time, Stiles hadn’t sprawled himself into Scott’s space too.  

“Scott, wake up,” Melissa said quickly, running away from the thought of the Stiles-shaped hole in the pile of friends.  “They found Stiles and Derek.”

Not only did the kids wake up, they started displacing each other as they sat up.  The tangles slowed them down but every set of eyes looked at her.  Cora slinked from her slice of the bed’s edge and got to her feet first, quiet and listening close.  The others were a clambering of voices and Melissa had to wave them into quiet.

“We’ll need some of you to go meet them,” said Melissa, preempting some of the questions in hopes that she wouldn’t have to yell over them.  Lydia sat tall in Aiden’s lap.

“I won’t go,” she declared.  She seemed to have caught on that Melissa didn’t have good news.  “I will not go find bodies.  Especially not near a lake.  Surrounded by trees.”

“No, sweetie. I’ll need you two to help me here,” Melissa agreed, more to settle Lydia’s worries than as a part of any plan.

“Is Stiles alright?” asked Cora.  It was a foregone conclusion that Derek would be fine, apparently.

“Chris said they had seen both of them, they just can’t get in to get them without help,” Melissa said.  She didn’t say that Chris had called her because the sheriff was still too shaken up to form complete sentences, but at least she hadn’t had to try lying to the girl while standing in a room full of human-lie-detectors.  She looked to Allison and Isaac.

“Your father said you should bring the truck, that you’d know what he meant, and he’ll need four of you up there by noon,” she told them.  Scott looked confused.

“We’ll just go now...”

“It’s too dark.  You don’t know where you’re going.  Chris said he could barely find the place.”  Melissa shook her head.  “And I hate to do this but I need you and Cora to help me here.”

“What!” The annoyance and anger was clear from both Scott and Cora, but Melissa wasn’t going to back down.  She looked to Cora.  “I’ll need your help with your uncle,” she said.  Then she hesitated and looked to Scott.  “And your help with your father.”

“Screw my father,” snapped Scott. “That’s Stiles!”

“And my brother,” returned Cora, glaring her best Hale-glare at him.  “So we do what we can do for the pack.  Not just for us.”

Scott wasn’t the only one disgruntled at the arrangement, but Cora’s words seemed to resonate.

“We’ll go with Allison,” said Ethan.  “Both of us.”  He looked back to his brother to confirm and got a nod.  Even Lydia approved.  Danny, perched behind Ethan on the corner of the bed just ducked his forehead to rest on the other teen’s shoulder.  Melissa figured she knew the feeling.  She offered a small grin in thanks and looked to Lydia and Danny.  

“The good news is we know what we’re dealing with now.  It’s safe for everyone here to split up,” she said.  “So Scott and Cora can take you two home.  And the others can head to Allison’s to get ready to leave.”

There were a few muttered responses but Melissa didn’t think too much about it.  She looked over at her son, Scott still chewing his lip and trying not to glare at the floor.  He still didn’t agree with her call.  But she would explain it to him when he was back.  Kyle was for the two of them to handle anyway, a different kind of pack to deal with.  Melissa looked back over the group.

“Come on,” she cheered, subdued by the circumstances. “Up and at ‘em, troops!  Get a move on it.”

Then she turned and caught the door, closing it behind her on the way out into the hall to give the group their space to finish waking up.  It was going to be a long day.

 

***

 

The fights were, from what Stiles could tell, a three-man operation. Mark was the only one who had spoken to them so far, but Derek herded Stiles away from all of them whenever somebody popped up.  He was always there if Stiles so much as breathed funny and it was somewhere between annoying and the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.  The numbers against them weren't impossible, but Derek kept stalling because Stiles couldn't outrun a pack in the Sierra Nevadas.  So when they were steered into yet another car - this time they got to buckle-up like humans! - Derek didn't try shoving Stiles out the door even though they were both _definitely_ thinking about it.

It was dark and they drove in circles and Stiles was tired.  He passed out within two minutes, his stomach still grumbling from the day's lack of mealtimes.  Derek woke him up sometime later, looking just as groggy, but more alert than Stiles could manage.  They ended up at another mountain ranch, down into the dark around the lake.  Stiles saw shadows of trees and fence posts and not much else besides the house and barn. He trudged along behind Derek when they were let out, squinting but not seeing anything that could tell him where he was.

"For now, this is where you'll be," Mark told them.  They didn't walk toward the house, the building pitch black at the windows and doors.  Instead it was the barn.  Of course it was the barn.  Where it smelled like dogs and chickens and horses - Stiles was pretty sure he was allergic to horses - and squeaked like rats.

But on the other hand, it was better than an Argent basement or a root cellar.  He figured they were more or less coming out ahead just for that.  

Mark flipped a switch in the barn and Stiles squinted at real light from real lamps.  It wasn't a modern barn, but it was used.  Also a good sign.  They followed Mark to the back of the barn, stopping one horse stall - yes, that's right kids, a horse stall - from the end of the line.  The urban-styled werewolf waved them inside.

"Food," Derek reminded the man shortly.  One of the other wolves carried a cardboard UPS box and shook it at Derek as a hint, the soft “thump-thump-thump” indicating food inside, then threw it into the stall.  That was the clearest "Go fetch" that Stiles had ever seen and he ducked inside to chase the food and avoid the explosion that may or may not cloud the door when Derek was done with it.  Derek blocked the door after him and stared down the men on the other side of it as they rolled the gate that shut them inside.  The top half of the gate was barred, as was a small window sized space along the wall next to it, and the high window along the back wall of the barn.  Lots of airflow in the small space, just not a lot of light.  It smelled clean though.  Stiles could deal with it.  He settled down into the thankfully fresh layer of hay along the floor and used the knife - which he was surprised to realize no one had tried to take from him once since he’d gotten it - to cut into the taped up box.

“Holy mother of Cheezits,” Stiles breathed.  It was like Christmas in a box.  Pre-packaged, store-bought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, packs of tuna snackables, pre-cooked bacon-jerky, and bags upon bags of crackers and chips.  PopTarts!  He fully intended to hit a carbohydrate coma and let Derek fend for himself like a wolf was supposed to do in the woods.  Derek glanced back at him digging through the prize, then broke from the door guarding to go and investigate.  Stiles hugged the box to his chest territorially, earning a thwap across the back of the head.  He reluctantly shared and handed Derek the nearest thing to the top of the box that Stiles hadn’t gotten to for himself yet.  Derek accepted it, then walked off to investigate another box in the corner furthest from where Stiles had sat.

“Water, too,” he reported.  “And a First-aid.”

“Fooooood,” Stiles said, his mouth full already.  The rest of him was too tired to care about the other necessities that had been listed off.  Derek handed him a bottle of water anyway.  He sat down beside and tried poking into the box again.  Stiles shoved it off his lap in a reluctant offering to share.  He looked around the room, bare sheetrock and barred windows, and nothing much else.  At all.  He chewed thoughtfully, then stopped and gave a grimace.  

“You know...” he began, not liking whatever conclusion he had just arrived at.  “This setup is really gonna suck in about an hour.”

“I give it a half hour, max,” agreed Derek.  Not like it didn’t suck already, but it was definitely going to get worse.  “Because now you’re going to think about it.”  He made a face at the junk food in the box and reluctantly grabbed a bag of chips.

Stiles let out a deep sigh, his chest rattling ominously as he finished off his second sandwich.  He pushed at the box again, pouting, really, and then got a foot behind it and kicked it out into the center of the stall.  It was a protest doomed to a short life, but it had definitely been made.  He leaned back against the wall and zoned out, staring at the bars on the window.

“Stiles?” Derek’s concerned question snapped him out of it and he looked up just in time to get hit by a jacket in the chest.  Derek’s jacket.  In a very strong hint.  Stiles frowned and tried to shove it back at him.  Standing over him, Derek gave him the “I’m meaner than you” look and wouldn’t take it back.  “Your teeth are chattering.  It’s 30 degrees in here.  Take it.”

The drop in temperature from what Stiles was used to at home would explain the teeth chattering then.  His pride called a truce on the matter and he hid in the jacket without further argument.  He stared at his shoes. Then he looked over into the shadows along the wall as Derek settled into the straw further off.

“Hey, Derek?” he said, unusually quiet.  He caught the faint hint of light from the window over their heads reflecting off the shadow of Derek’s face, his only clue that the man was looking at him, listening to him.  “Thanks.”

Derek grunted, and Stiles thought he saw the shadow nod and look away.  Stiles frowned.  “No, man, I mean it.  We didn’t die.  We got food.  It sucks but we’re still alive and we both know there is _no way_ that’s my fault.”

There was a huff of amusement. “Yeah. Okay.”

“And,” Stiles went on, because he had reminded himself how ridiculously close he was to being dead soon. “Just... for the record that I will never admit to, ever, ever again, for the sake of both of our sanities... I really don’t like being afraid of you all the time.  So this is a good change.”

“You’re afraid of me?”  There was that confused tone to Derek’s voice, which meant that somewhere in the shadow, Derek was making his _WTF_ face.  Stiles let out a short laugh, surprised that Derek had somehow never caught the memo.

“Uh.  You slammed my head into things.  It was like back when Lydia ignored me, except there was _actual pain_ involved.”  

There was absolute silence for a moment as Stiles realized what he had just said.  He curled over his knees and slowly beat his forehead against them.  He wanted to curl up and find a hole to bury himself in.  He shook it off and leaned back against the wall again.  There was no saving any pride after this, ever, but he tried anyway.  “And Lydia can be _terrifying_.  So there’s that.”  It didn’t sound right either so he waved a hand in the air to erase the entire conversation and declared, “I’m going to sleep now because I was obviously hit in the head too many times.”

There was no argument and Stiles hoped for a moment that the long, awkward silence that offered him no refuge from the unconscious connection he’d just made outloud meant that Derek had been asleep and he’d never heard it.  He stared at the barred door, his decision to take a nap slowly settling in as he slumped down to the ground.  Stiles was almost asleep when movement startled him and he looked up, over at Derek to see if Derek had made the noise.  Except he couldn’t see him.  Derek wasn’t there.  He looked around and then stopped, the shadows blending out until a large black wolf came into focus, standing less than two feet from him in the middle of the room.  Stiles thought he was hallucinating until he realized he could hear the wolf’s snuffling breaths and see actual dimension.  He froze, confused.  

“Derek?” he asked quietly, not quite believing what he was fairly certain he was seeing. The wolf padded closer and Stiles saw the crystal blue eyes.  He offered a hand out, tentative.  “Can I-”

The wolf tucked his head into Stiles’ palm and stayed there.  It seemed to still Stiles’ mind and he just sat and stared.  When the wolf curled around over the hay a few times and then lay down along his side, Stiles just stared some more.

“Derek?” he asked again.  The tail thumped at his elbow and the back of his arm, trapped by the wall.  “Okay.  That is... the coolest thing I have ever - _ever_ \- seen.”

The tail thumped a few more times and Derek set his head down on the hay at Stiles’ knee.  Stiles sagged into the wall, suddenly warm, and calm, and well beyond tired.  He fell asleep with his fingers tangled in the thick black fur at the wolf’s neck.

 

***

 

Chris Argent recognized the SUV that drove up to the motel.  It parked next to his rig and almost immediately the doors all opened.  Allison took a bit longer, the only one who hadn't already unbuckled by the time the engine was turned off.  She slammed the door of her mom's SUV and ran up the stairs after the boys.

Chris opened the door just before they arrived and stepped out of the way to let them in.  He watched Ethan and Aiden warily until Allison trailed by him.

"Where's Scott?" he asked her quietly.  Allison shook her head.

"Melissa needed him.  They're trying to keep agent McCall off our backs," she reported.  Chris nodded.

"Good.  The Feds won't help this situation at all," he said.  Allison shot him an apologetic look before going to find a place to hole up in the room.

"So we have no alpha here," Isaac offered up, curious why Chris was wanting Scott.  "Do we need one? Is that it? Are we dealing with hunters or wolves?"

"Hunters," said Chris with the sheriff as an echo.  Stilinski sat at the table across the room, out of the way of the teenagers who had congregated between the queen sized beds and on either side of the old TV stand.  Chris stayed by the door.  Habit when in a room of werewolves.  He didn’t quite possess his daughter’s level of faith in their humanity.

"And we'll have an alpha with us when we get Derek," added Stilinski.  "It's just getting that far that's the problem."

"Where are they then?" asked Allison.  Chris didn't bother waiting for the sheriff to explain that one; Stilinski had started treating the fights as some mythical place that didn't exist as long as he didn't mention them by name.  Chris wasn't letting the man's law-enforcement blind-side lull the kids into underestimating the problem.  He explained where they had found Derek and Stiles, and that they had, so far, found no easy way to track them outside of the fighters' ring.

Allison clenched her fists and looked ill when she heard, which gave Chris a little hope for the next generation even if he wasn't impressed with the current crop of hunting stock.  Ethan and Aiden didn't quite seem to understand the problem.

"They're okay then?" Aiden asked.  "We've seen them fight.  Both of them.  They can dish it out."

"Sure, they do damage, but Stiles isn't a werewolf," Chris said.

"And he looked pretty torn up before the fight," said Stilinski.  "From the accident or something.  So we don't get to sit back and wait for them to get themselves out."

"How can we help?" asked Ethan quietly.

"Numbers," said Allison suddenly. "We go back tonight, and we look around.  We split up and find them."  She looked to her dad, subtly checking that she was on the right track.  He gave her a tight smile and nodded.

"Then if there's trouble, we are within yelling range of back up," he said.  "We're still outnumbered by the crowd but it's better than nothing."

"If we know where they are, why not just call the cops?" asked Isaac.  He didn't seem to do well in crowds.  Stilinski shook his head.

"No cops," he said.  He seemed to gag a little on the statement.  "There are cops _in_ this crowd.  We can't trust this county."

"And if something goes wrong and we can't find Stiles and Derek, a police raid would just alert them to problems and Stiles is as good as in the ground," said Chris.  "They're hunters; it's best to cut bait and run when we're in over our heads."

"When do we go?" The twins were both ready to leave and start the search.

"The fights are tonight," said Chris.

"That's a long way off," said Allison, disapproving.  Chris nodded.

"So today we look around the area and move in toward the bar that fronts it, see what we run into," Stilinski replied.  "The place out front opens for lunch soon.  We'll eat, like normal tourists, then look around.  Like tourists.  No wolves."  Stilinski looked to the twins, he and Chris both not sure they would listen.  The response from Aiden was a smile with too much teeth.

***


	8. Chapter 8

Around daybreak someone came by to wake up Stiles and make sure he was still alive.  The teenager was mostly fine, just bruised and sliced in a few places.  As far as Derek could tell, Stiles would survive what he had already walked into, there was just no telling what the rest of the day would bring.  He silently supervised the stranger checking Stiles over, walking him around the barn, talking to him to try to gauge mental awareness.

It didn't make sense to Derek.  Why did they care if the kid survived? Just for profit, stretch the kid's limits to get more fights?  They were just going to throw them in the ring again, and their luck would only run so long there.  It was the only thing they could do, because sooner rather than later _someone_ would say _something_ about the Amber Alert matching Stiles’ less-abused description.  Stiles didn't ask many questions though, - he was still tired and hadn't had coffee - so Derek didn't find out much while stuck inside the horse stall and eavesdropping.  When Stiles came back, the teen sprawled in the hay, sneezed a few times, and then fell asleep.  Apparently he had other things to distract his mind for once and slept for a solid six hours.

Derek was content to stay wolf that day.  For some reason, Stiles was noticeably calmer and less afraid of the wolf form than he was of Derek.  That made no sense at all, but it was Stiles, so the rules were expected to be different.  And just because there wasn't a human face to talk to didn't mean Stiles would shut up, it just meant Derek could sleep through it without being noticed to offend him.  He didn't have to talk back.  Stiles took advantage of that, too, but again, it was easier to ignore.  Derek certainly found his zen as a wolf.

Stiles started in on cabin fever by the time Mark showed up again that night.   It was a little worrisome, but Stiles was almost cheerful toward the other wolf.  Mark was cheerful back.  Stiles negotiated for a steak-and-potatoes dinner if they won another fight, and Derek became convinced Stiles had lost his mind somewhere in among the hay.

When Mark showed up again to load them in the car,  Derek followed at Stiles' heels to snap at anyone who crowded them.  If Mark wanted a wolf fight, in a crowd, he could deal with the dangers of the four-legged form himself.  And, scared or not, Stiles played by Mark's rules.  Derek was only half certain the teen was looking for a chance to run and not the steak he had negotiated for.

At the fight, Derek led the way into the ring again, but he stopped and looked back when he heard Stiles' heart rate spike.  Mark followed them.  Fully wolfed.   Stiles ran out ahead of him to get away from the unknown werewolf, the knife held in a white-knuckled grip.  Derek growled but took the hint.

 

***

 

“How much cash have you got?” The question surprised Stilinski, as well as each of the teenagers with him.  Chris Argent, the _Hunter Who Took On Werewolves_ , looked equal parts annoyed and sheepish as he stood at the end of their dinner table.  

“What?” asked the sheriff.  “We already paid for dinner...”

“Someone saw me throw Stiles the knife last night,” Chris reported, giving a slight wave toward the back of the restaurant and the warehouse the group had been hoping to walk through before the fights.  “Now they won’t let me, or you, in without a wager.  If we want to gamble, fine, but if not, we’ll be lucky to get back in the bar again once we leave here.”

Allison had a smile slowly spilling across her face.  “You gave Stiles your knife?”

“The kid needed it,” Chris said.  “He was going to get his ass handed to him.”

Stilinski tried not to think too much about that part and let himself be amused by the obvious pride on Chris’ daughter’s face.  Kids.  He shook his head, missing his own kid so much that he handed his entire wallet over to Chris.  

“Just get us in the door,” he said.  The boys each dug into their wallets too, the twins pulling out a surprising amount of cash to hand to Chris. The hunter didn’t say anything, just turned away.  Stilinski thought about it a moment and then reached out and caught Chris’ arm before he could disappear.  

“Bet on Derek,” he said.  Chris’ expression told Stilinski that his sentimentality was not appreciated and he rolled his eyes.  “Better returns,” he explained patiently.  That went over a little better and Chris shrugged like maybe he might do it.  Stilinski shook his head.  He poked at the remains of his dinner and started thinking of ways to sneak three underaged werewolves into an illegal fight with an equally underaged hunter and have it not result in some kind of explosion within the warehouse.

 

***

 

It had been two weeks since Scott had hovered.  Melissa could almost pretend she had missed it.  Except she knew this time, her son was lurking in her space because his mind was full, not because he was being adorably hyper-protective.  Melissa let him stew as she sorted through her earrings.  When she looked up to check the mirror, there was Scott, sitting on the end of the bed, staring at her.

“Okay,” she finally said.  Her reflection waved at him in invitation.  “Out with it.  Before you explode.”

Scott didn’t need to be told twice.  “I think this is a really bad, really dangerous idea, and I really, really don’t like it.”

“Really?” asked Melissa, grinning.  “Which part?  The part where I’m going out, like an adult?  Or the part where I’m leaving you here with your father, alone, and expecting you to socialize and be civil?”

Scott thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.  “Both,” he said. “There’s a high likelihood of violence in both of them.”

“There will be no violence,” said Melissa.  She gave her son the stern Mom-face that Scott usually didn’t argue with.  “And if there are temptations to violence, you call me.  I’m just at my cell phone.  Or you call Lydia.”  Melissa had recruited Lydia to babysitting Scott via text message for the evening.

“If I do and she screams, can I initiate violence?” asked Scott, a dark smirk on his face.  Melissa gave the logic it’s due consideration; as a banshee, Lydia could sense things foretold to happen, sure, but ultimately it still got down to Scott just having to not kill his father for one night.  Melissa wasn’t budging from that.

“No.”  

As put-together as she was going to bother with for the evening, Melissa turned toward Scott and leaned back against the dresser to match his slouch.

“I promise you, the best thing we can do right now is keep your father occupied.  Just while the others are out of town.  He thinks Sheriff Stilinski is some kind of cut-rate drunk bilking the city or something.  It won’t go over well that he left town chasing after Stiles when we can’t even tell Kyle where Stiles is.”

“Will you tell me where Stiles is, at least?” asked Scott.  Melissa shook her head.

“Not until tonight when I get home.”  She was hoping for better news to report by then.  Melissa gnawed at her lip and her gaze darted toward the cell phone just inches from her fingers.  Still no text.  But Stilinski had said nothing would happen until after dinner time anyway.

“He’s going to know something’s wrong,” Scott said.  He was still pouting, but he was at least applying logic.  “I’ve spent two weeks not talking to him.  This will be weird.”

“Then try not to be weird,” said Melissa.  “I’m not saying lay it on thick and ask to go play baseball or go fishing or something.  I’m just saying make it work.  Maybe make amends.  You’ve only got one dad, like it or not...”

“Yeah, and he sucks at it, so why do I care?” asked Scott, completely serious.  Melissa nodded and shrugged.

“Then, if you can manage it without violence, pick a fight about how much he sucks as a dad.  Not like he’s not _expecting_ that at this point,” she said.  It would be therapeutic and she really hoped Scott took her up on the suggestion.  She was just glad to not be in the house for it.  Scott’s expression said he might take that track.  Melissa chanced a small grin.  It would be completely okay in her playbook if Scott ran his father out of town before they had to bother with anything more elaborate.  But that was why Melissa McCall would not be winning any Mother of the Year awards any time soon; she didn’t hold to the idea that her son was better off knowing his father than not, and that alone was likely the source of mental issues that would only clear up via years of therapy she hadn’t been able to scrape together for him yet.

Out in the hall, the doorbell chimed through the house.  Scott went back to scowling.

“I still don’t get why you have to go out,” he said.  Melissa collected her purse and phone.  

“Because I don’t want your father getting ideas,” said Melissa.  She gave a crafty little grin.  “So right about now he’s probably having a conversation he never thought he’d have, and in a few minutes, you’ll have the urge to rip your eyes out of your head, and _then_ you and your father can commiserate over how much you hate my choice in dates.”

Scott narrowed his eyes.  “You aren’t.”

Melissa nodded, smirking.  “It’s part of the plan,” she told him.  “You’ve now been warned.”

“Mom!”

Melissa headed to the door and paused before opening it to let herself out.  “I’m pushing the fashionably late envelope here.  Are you coming down to be properly scarred for life or will you be hiding up here for the duration?”

Scott settled back down against the bed as though he intended to camp out until she got back, but just before Melissa shut the door he dove for it.  He surprised her by walking down ahead of her, apparently entirely dedicated to his protective side and planning to supervise.  Melissa shook her head, a genuine smile on her face as she walked down the stairs.  She stopped at the bottom of them, looking at the smug, suave gentleman standing in front of her door, and the still-in-his-work-suit, stunned, ex-husband standing not far away.  Melissa almost wanted to know what Peter had said to the man.  

“On time, as usual,” Peter Hale said as he held out a hand in greeting.  Melissa had never had to fight to keep a straight face so hard in her life as she let him tug her in for a sideways hug and peck on the cheek.  Scott glowered at them from the bottom step.  Kyle was just staring.  It was almost jealousy.  Melissa was certain he would run Peter’s name, find out he was one of the last surviving Hales, (who had recently, miraculously, woken from a years-long coma state,) and try to pin every crime from the last two years on him.  That would keep him busier than looking for anything on Allison Argent.  Not to mention a helluva lot closer to the truth.

Melissa looked between Kyle and Scott, the slightest tinge of sadness for seeing them standing side by side for the first time in years.  She kept up her smile and offered a wave of her hand as she let Peter steer her out the front door.  “You two, behave yourselves.  Please don’t destroy my house.  I’ll be back by eleven.”

“Ten!” Scott called after her.

“Eleven thirty then,” Melissa replied.

“No, ten-thirty works,” said Kyle.  He was already suspicious.  Then Peter flashed a smile, his eyes snapped briefly blue, and he closed the door between them.  Melissa scurried to the waiting car, not wanting to hear Kyle’s reaction.  Peter met her at the door and opened it to let her in.  She looked at him sideways.

“You remember the part where this isn’t actually a date, right?” she asked suspiciously.  He gave a gracious nod.

“This is called selling the part,” he replied with a small bow.  Melissa rolled her eyes and ducked into the car.  She still had the gun; Peter could sell what he wanted as long as she wasn’t expected to buy.

 

***

 

The silence from the kids was somewhat surprising as the fight started up.  Stilinski wasn't sure what he had expected, but it wasn't the stone faces.  The first time Stiles hit the floor, however, Allison nearly jumped out of her chair.  Stilinski had a little more _practice_ at watching his son nearly _die_ from ten yards away and had contained it to swearing under his breath.  Besides, Chris had made him leave his weapons in the truck.

"Screw this," said one of the twins.  Aiden caught Isaac by the arm and towed him out into the aisle.  Allison went with them.  Stilinski caught Ethan before he could follow them.

"Stay with us," he said.  He didn't want split up at all, but he couldn't begrudge the kids for leaving.  Stilinski just didn't want to be back where they were yesterday if something went wrong; they were going to need the kids' particular skillset.  

Ethan looked down at where the sheriff had grabbed his shoulder and for a moment it looked like there would be trouble.  Stilinski didn't let up, splitting his attention between the fights in the ring - two wolves and two humans, with Stiles wading into the dogfight frequently to avoid the human one - and keeping Ethan from following the others.  Ethan took a breath and settled again, hackles going down.

Stilinski pointed out where the other three had gone.  They were ringside.  And shouting.  Allison was very loudly in favor of someone getting killed.  Stilinski blinked and made the mental note to never underestimate the persuasive power of female bloodlust as Stiles seemed to find his feet and take his - pitiful - fight on the offensive.

He looked to Chris.  The hunter's wary expression matched how Stilinski suddenly felt.

"I'm not sure this was our best idea," said Chris.  The sheriff snorted.

"Ya think?"

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Rather than abandon my beta-reader, I'm going to *slowly* post things so she can fix things. :) The fic is *done*, just in beta-mode for awhile.


	9. Chapter 9

At the end of the fight, Stiles' head hurt like nothing he had ever felt, but adrenaline was a sure-fire cure-all.  The fight was called when Derek slammed his wolfy-opponent down and kept him pinned between massive jaws just waiting to snap closed.  Which was very good timing because Stiles had gotten pinned into the bars and had no way to get himself out.  Technically, they had won, but he doubted Mark would stand by the bet for a steak dinner after such a public embarrassment.  Derek should have ripped his throat out while it was handy.

Stiles and Derek waited in the gear room after their fight just as before.  Derek shifted back to human - also the coolest thing Stiles had ever witnessed - and into the clothes they had brought with them.  Then Derek got dragged out for another fight.  And Stiles got to recover in the gear room... and pace the floor, and pound on the door a few times.

And wonder if he had really seen and heard Allison Argent cheering them on in the shadows when he had been up against the bars or if Stiles Stilinski had gone officially batty.

 

****

 

Derek made a clean sweep.  His fights were raucous and infuriating to the crowd (with the notable exception of the crowd ringside, ten rows in front of the quieter Beacon Hills sheriff, hunter, and werewolf representatives.)  Chris stared at the digital display board against the wall, tracking the numbers following the randomly-selected fighter number Derek had been given.  Stiles was “9” and not on the board anymore, but Derek was “33” and apparently nobody in the entire building had thought Derek could pull off the fluke from the night before.  They definitely hadn’t counted on him winning another five fights.

The sheriff nudged Chris’ elbow and pointed up at the board the man was already looking at anyway.  “How much of that action do we get?”

Chris shook his head, as close to flabbergasted as the man could get.  “Depends.  Mostly on how much of it you wanted in cash.”

Stilinski raised an eyebrow.  Ethan leaned forward to look around Stilinski at Chris, apparently just as disbelieving.  “How much did you put down on him?” the kid asked.

“All the cash we had,” Chris said.  Stilinski choked.  Chris shrugged.  “I had to sell it.”

“Thanks for stopping before you sold my house,” muttered Stilinski.  He dug into his wallet for the first time since getting it back from Chris after dinner, finding it empty of cash as promised, and the credit cards rearranged in alphabetical order.  “You’re as bad as Stiles.”

Chris glared at him.

 

****

 

Stiles had resorted to bouncing on his toes to shed the nervous energy locked in the little room.  He could hear the crowd, could tell people were angry, but he didn’t know when Derek was fighting.  When he pressed his ear up to the door, he heard other fighters in the hall that separated him from the entry gate into the ring, many of them impressed by the new guy, others commenting on how wicked it was to be in the ring with a wolf.  Once there was absolute silence after a fight and Stiles chewed down a nail waiting for the next fight to start up to figure out if Derek was still in it or not.

Finally the door was opened and one of Mark’s minions was there to collect him.  Stiles had to stifle the very physical urge to pounce on Derek’s neck when he saw the man standing off with the other minion, battered but healing.  He just grinned instead.  

“Come on, time to leave,” said Minion One - Stiles hadn’t bothered to ask for names, because he was the lowly human kidnappee and tried to give them every reason in the world to think he couldn’t identify them in a line-up later - as he motioned Stiles out ahead of them toward the door.  Stiles shot a look at Derek.  Sourwolf just raised one eyebrow, sensing the smile to mean trouble, a very accurate sense at that.

“Did you win?” Stiles asked.  He didn’t even bother to try not being smug about it.  Derek gave a small nod.

“Mostly,” he said.

“So we get steak and potatoes and eat like kings tonight?”  Stiles threw as much into it as he could, his gaze shifting from Derek to the fast approaching doors.  Then he was through the doors, breathing chilled, fresh air and seeing moonlight reflect off of the sidewalk like snow.  It was bright as day in some places outside, others pure black, but Stiles’ eyes adjusted.

“I seriously, seriously doubt Mark will be that generous,” chimed in Minion Bee.

Walking outside, shoulder to shoulder, Stiles caught Derek’s attention and, with a look, hinted strongly toward the woods again.  There were two of them, and two minions, and Mark wasn’t around.  It was the closest to an engraved invitation to the Freedom Event Horizon as they would get.  Derek looked away quickly.  Stiles knew he was backing out before he had even stepped up.

“Too damn bad,” Stiles muttered.  That was the only warning he gave before he took off running for the cover of the woods.  He knew he had heard Allison and the others.  They just had to get around to the front and around real people.  He could find them.  As long as Derek kept the wolves busy.

 

***

 

 _You idiot!_  The thought was gone as Derek turned it back on himself.  He had seen the request turn into a warning, he just hadn’t wanted to believe the kid would try something so _stupid_ as outrunning two wolves, in the dark, on their own territory.  But Stiles wasn't running because he was stupid; he was running because he trusted Derek to back the play.  Also _stupid_ , just a different kind, and probably Derek’s fault.

Derek threw the first punch before he could think it out, too focused on getting Stiles a head start.  Just one kid, against a known threat.  The numbers weren't impossible.  If Stiles thought he could run...

Finding himself in a three-man fight with Mark’s two werewolves, Derek had the aggressor's advantage.  In the moonlight outside, they shifted forms as they fought, into the shape that allowed them lethal long arms with claws for knives.  Derek heard Stiles' heartbeat as the teenager raced into the woods, confident that he was still okay.  

And then a dark, bloodied shadow raced past his fight, four feet tearing up the dirt along the trail Stiles left.  Derek let out a roar, a warning, as one of Mark's men jumped on his back to drag him down.

 

***

 

“They took Hale’s number down,” said Chris suddenly.  Stilinski looked, distracted from the fights in the ring.  

“Why?” he asked.  “What happened? He left walking again...”

Beside him, Ethan stood tall, head tilted like he was listening over the din of the crowd.  The teen was tense.  The kid had gone far away.  It was distracting.  The sheriff nudged him with an elbow.

“What?” he asked.  Ethan looked up at him briefly, then started looking for his brother.  Aiden and Isaac seemed to be mirroring him.  They left the ring then and shoved through the crowd up to Ethan again.  Allison, emotionally exhausted and shouted-out, trailed behind them, not about to be left behind.

“What’s going on?” Chris insisted.

“I don’t...” Ethan hesitated before he looked to Aiden and Isaac and back at Chris.  “We heard Derek.”

The three non-werewolves of the group looked at them blankly.  Ethan shook his head.  “It was outside.  We should go.”

“We split up,” said Chris instead.  He pointed between the groups as they were already divided.  “You three, go see what you heard.  Ethan, stay here with us and we’ll make sure this thing’s really over before we track them down.”

“We won’t be able to find you later,” Stilinski told them quickly, covering the protests before they could happen.  “Ethan can track you down in the crowd easier than we can.”

It was grudgingly agreed to, no one completely happy with it, and the boys rushed Allison off toward the exit.  Chris scowled after them.  He watched the fight for another moment, so physically tense he was fidgeting.  Stilinski caught him by the shoulder to get his attention.

“Let’s just go cash out.  He’s off the board.  There’s something going on,” he said.  Chris nodded his agreement.  Ethan wasn’t about to argue either.

 

***

 

In the dark, the path faded around the various empty hotel cabins and garbage bins and other sporadic signs of humanity.  Stiles took it on full speed, arms pumping, feet levering off the ground more than pounding.  It was a breakaway in lacrosse practice, and he didn’t have the stick messing up his balance.  He just had werewolves literally dogging him.  Stiles went too wide around the less populated neighboring buildings and quickly found that he had set himself up for a longer run than he could pull off after the past two days.  He aimed for a light shining through the trees that looked like it would take him to a street, hoped it would be the road that fronted the bar and grill they had passed on the way to the warehouse.

The inevitable was a lot less painful than Stiles’ imagination said it should have been.  Compared to the fights he had been in and had his ass handed to him by, tripping on a fallen branch - crack! slide! _oof..._ \- was easy, and it included a padded landing surface, all completely free with the service.  With a mouthful of pine needles and dirt and practically swimming in moldy leaves, Stiles wasted precious seconds trying to figure out which way was up.  He scrambled over a tree root and tried to get to his feet, only to feel a heavy weight bounce against his back and knock the air out of him.  Stiles heard the growl next and brought up the knife even though he was still trying to get his feet under his legs.  With the right leverage, he launched himself into another run and didn’t even look around for the wolf.  It was too dark.  It would waste time.  And when the wolf wanted him to know, he would definitely let him know.  Stiles wasn’t calling himself stupid yet; he had gotten pretty far, even if it obviously wasn’t in any kind of useful direction, and he wasn’t dead yet.  It was better than being locked up in a horse stall again.

There was another quick attack, the wolf sniping at Stiles’ ankles and getting kicked in the nose.  Another, that nearly got his wrist.  Stiles figured it had to be Mark because the werewolf was taunting him, herding him away from the street.  He knew it wasn’t Derek.  (He just knew, okay.)  And then Stiles recognized the neon lights of the bar and grill and realized he had been goaded into a circle.  Some escape that was.   _Now_ he felt stupid.  

“Okay!” he panted, his chest heaving and his knees threatening collapse. “I yield.  It had to be _tried_.  I’m done now.”

As if in agreement, the wolf pounced and tackled and Stiles took another header into dirt and grass and leaves.  He came dangerously close to landing on his own knife as he tried to catch himself.  That was a horrifying moment.  On the heels of it came another as the wolf’s snarling muzzle clamped teeth around the back of his neck, threatening his spine and life and ability to think straight all in one swift move.  Stiles froze up, held his hands to the sides above his shoulders without leaving the ground in a clear surrender and started negotiating with the fates for a little more time.  The wolf growled and he felt teeth, felt heat and pain and _eww why was it drooling no that’s not okay..._ Then Stiles realized he held the knife and he tossed it away quickly to placate.  The growling stopped and the teeth eased up without breaking skin.  The wolf backed up slowly and waited for Stiles to move.  

Impending doom recalled for the moment, Stiles worked on breathing.  Then on moving.  Trying to stand up came last.  The wolf snarled at him and snapped when Stiles reached for the knife again.  He held up his hands and left it there.  He caught the hint and walked back toward the warehouse, dismayed to learn he had come out on the other side of the lot, behind the barn that Mark used as a garage.  He had literally turned left instead of right and run the wrong way.  Thank god it wasn’t a lacrosse game or Finstock would have shamed him into seppuku on the field.

They were met by the minions at the edge of the barn.  Minion One took charge of getting Stiles to the truck and Minion Bee went for the drivers’ seat.  

“Where’s Derek?” Stiles asked.

“Staying here,” came Bee’s response.  Stiles noted smugly the werewolves were still healing from damage.  He wisely didn’t mention Derek again as he was packed into the front passenger seat and driven back to the horse stall.  The last place he wanted to be, especially by himself.

***

 


	10. Chapter 10

Chris came back from the window looking impossibly more paranoid than he had walking up to it.  He didn’t look happy, but he did look surprised.

“How much was it?” Ethan asked, impatiently curious.  Stilinski backed the question up with a nod.  He had personally invested some $500 cash into Derek Hale’s fighting prowess and was just a little curious to the pay-off.  

“Allison’s college fund,” replied Chris.  Ethan let out a whoop and held a hand up for his share but Chris swatted it away.  Stilinski was, for a moment, as enthusiastic at the payoff as the teenager, but then a thought crossed his mind that made him feel ill.

“Chris?” he asked slowly.  “Is there enough in the winnings to buy a wolf?”

Ethan looked at the sheriff like he had been hit, bared his teeth briefly until he saw that Stilinski was no happier about the question than the werewolf whom it had offended.  Ethan looked to Chris, waiting for the hunter’s answer.

“Maybe,” Chris said, reluctant.  “Yeah.”

The two adults considered it as they walked back outside, silent.  Stilinski was leaning more and more toward trying the insane idea forming in his head.  He looked to Ethan.

“Can you do what Derek did back there?” he asked.  “Turn into a real wolf?  Not just that... other thing?”

Ethan gave him a flat look like he was trying politely not to be offended by the sheriff’s stumbling question.  “Yes.”

“Is that an alpha thing?” asked Stilinski.   

“Born wolf,” corrected Ethan.  “Have to be taught and learn and it’s hard to get the hang of.  Most of the bitten never learn it.”

“Thank god,” muttered Chris.  Stilinski ignored him.  He ushered Ethan toward the truck out in the parking lot.

“Come on then,” he said.  “You and me are gonna go buy ourselves a born wolf.”

 

***

 

Getting out of the fight hall was easy with the the fights still going on.  The corridor between the warehouse and the restaurant was empty, most guests at the restaurant clueless to the business conducted in the warehouse that shared the parking lot.   Chris left Stilinski to Ethan and went in search of his daughter.  He found them lounging against the wall, which did not make him feel any better about letting Allison out of his sight.

"Are you on a _break_?" Chris asked.  Allison held a finger to her lips to shush him.  Chris looked around, seeing the tree line not far off.  Isaac came back from the corner of the building, a frown set firmly in place

"They just took Derek back inside," he reported quietly. "He wasn't happy."

"Really? We missed that," said Aiden dryly.  He threw a pine cone at the wall, working through the tension constructively.  Chris rolled his eyes.

"Was Stiles with him?" he asked, looking back to Isaac.  The response was a shake of the head, a clear negative.

"Go look around," Chris suggested.  "Just to check.  If one was out, the other might have made it too."

Aiden nodded, moving away from the wall to take his turn sniffing out the others.  Chris kept an eye out, watching the warehouse door and Aiden for trouble.  When the werewolf suddenly headed for the trees, Chris moved out to meet him.

"What'd you find?" He asked.

"Somebody ran," Aiden reported. "Must be Stiles."

"Can you-"

"Oh yeah.  A wolf already followed him," said Aiden.  Chris pulled a handgun from his shoulder holster, making sure Allison saw him with it.  She was armed under her layers of cold weather clothes; time to be ready to use them.

"Let's go find him then."

 

***

 

It took a lot of patience and a lot of work to wheedle their way into the back of the warehouse.  Under the viewing area was a different kind of theatre, a professional facade that included two different sparring rooms and locker rooms.  Signs and calendars posted in the halls boasted classes and all-ages clubs devoted to self-defense and martial arts.  The gambling just paid the bills a few nights a week.

It helped having a big, tawny wolf walking with him, Stilinski decided.  It was the weirdest thing in the world to be walking with a _wolf_ he knew to be a teenage kid, but it kept people from looking at him or kicking him out.  A few questions like a lost tourist got Stilinski in to the man he wanted to see, apparently someone named Mark.  The man looked run out and pissed off and had other things he would rather be doing, but Ethan the wolf had caught his attention.

Stilinski cut straight to the point.  This was no different than interviewing a perp, with video and witness verification to back up the crime; all he had to do was hand the man rope and wait for him to hang himself.   "I wanna buy your wolf."

"Which one?" scoffed Mark.

"33.  I saw him fight tonight and last night," Stilinski said.  He motioned toward the wolf sniffing violently at Mark's rumpled slacks and jacket.  "And I've already got one.  With two?  I could make a mint."

"This one fights?" Mark asked.  He looked down to the wolf in their midst, not at all uncomfortable with the presence of the huge animal.  Ethan bared his teeth, more impressive still with his hackles raised.  Stilinski nodded.

"Like a hellcat," he said.  "I can't keep up with him.  33 looks like he could."

Ethan snorted as an editorial commentary on that question.  Stilinski kept going.  "I've got cash.  I already know what I'm getting into.  Let me take the big guy off your hands."

"He's new.  And a pain in the ass," Mark said.  It sounded for a moment like a great big _No_ and he dragged it out.  His expression darkened and he shook his head.  "I paid 30.  If you can beat that, he's yours."

Stilinski could beat that price.  And he beat it soundly with plenty of cash left over.  

After what felt like days of ineffective looking and worrying, Stilinski got face to face with a very pissed off, very surprised Derek Hale.

 

***

True to her promise, Melissa returned home by 11pm.  She ducked into the living room to see that Kyle had taken over the coffee table to wait for her.  She made the expected noises about having had a great time and played it off.  After such a long few days, she was tired and promptly said good night, leaving Kyle with questions she had no intent to answer.  Melissa stopped at her son's door and knocked, hardly audible.  It opened before she had withdrawn her hand.  Melissa smiled and hooked a finger, silently waving for Scott to follow her.  They retreated into her room to hide from Kyle and trade notes.

"Where did you go?" Scott asked quickly.  He dropped onto the foot of her bed, watched as she fussed with earrings again.

"It wasn't a date," Melissa replied.  "Peter dropped me off at the sheriff's house.  He went wherever he goes and I made myself dinner."

Scott raised an eyebrow.  "How'd you get in?"

Melissa looked over her shoulder at her son.  "Stiles has a key to my house.  Now I've got one to his.  Fair is fair."

Scott's eyes narrowed and he clearly wanted to call her on a lie, but she wasn't lying.  The kid was confused and Melissa was content to let him stay that way.

"What happened here?" she asked instead, derailing him.  "I thank you for not burning the place down around your father while I was gone, by the way."

"It wasn't that bad," said Scott, reluctant about it.  "He saw what Peter did.  Before he left?  His eyes went blue..."

"Yeah? How'd that go over?" Melissa asked.  Scott gave a devilish grin.

"I pretended I hadn't seen it.  Told him he was crazy and seeing things.  Told him Peter's a jerk, but not as much of  a deadbeat."

Melissa winced sympathetically, smiling all the same.  Scott hadn't pulled any punches then.  She approved.

"You talk about anything else?" She asked.

"Didn't need to."  Scott shook his head.  There was still a tightness to his tone that said the conversation hadn't been quite that simple.  Melissa opted to leave it alone.  Scott charged right on ahead in case she didn't.  "You promised you'd tell me where Stiles was."

Melissa bit her lip and huffed.  He wasn't going to be put off of it.  "I haven't heard how things went tonight yet," she told him in warning.  Scott waved his hand for her to get on with it.  Melissa frowned.  "Apparently there's a fight club in Tahoe somewhere.  They don't know the details, they just know there's too much money involved to just go get them out of it.  They can't even call the cops."

"Fight club?" asked Scott, dubious.  "Like the kind nobody talks about?

"Only multiply by 'werewolves'," said Melissa.  Scott screwed up his face, confused.

"But why... Stiles can't fight.”

"He has the worst luck I've ever seen," Melissa said with a shrug.  It was the only explanation any of them had.  Pure chance and dumb luck had gotten Stiles into something and they were, incidentally, the only explanation for why he was still alive.

Scott nodded, frowning.  "What happened tonight? Or was supposed to, whatever."

Melissa shook her head and gave a helpless shrug.  "They were going to get them out.  Or try, anyway.

"That easy?" Scott fidgeted as worry crept into his features.  Melissa sighed.

"What were we _just_ saying about Stiles and luck?"

 

***


	11. Chapter 11

“Why the hell are you here?” growled Derek.  “Why weren’t you here yesterday?  Why didn’t you get Stiles?”

Stilinski sat in the driver’s seat, staring at the werewolf handcuffed in the passenger seat of the Argent SUV. Derek glared out at the restaurant on the opposite side of the parking lot, a brooding, seething, mess of slowly fading bruises.   

“Do I really need to answer any of that or are you just getting it out of your system?” Stilinski asked, cautious when handling the recently lit fuse of a werewolf.  Ethan sat in the backseat, watching Derek closely, and he had no helpful advice on how to handle the situation either.

“For the record, we were here yesterday,” Stilinski offered up when Derek didn’t seem to settle down any.  He could be as patient as any saint when needed, thanks to many years of training by his son.  “And if I could have believably pulled off a negotiation to buy my _son_ instead of a _wolf_ , you can bet I would have.  But there’s limits to every conversation and I didn’t think shooting your friend Mark in there would make me the kind of friends who would tell me where to find Stiles.”

“Aiden and Isaac tracked where he ran,” said Ethan.  He held up the cell phone that had been retrieved when he had gotten dressed again.  “Allison texted me.  She said they found the knife.”

Derek pounded his head against the back of the seat.  “He’s not here anymore.  They took him.”

“How do you know?” Stilinski asked.  “Chris is still out there looking with the kids...”

The werewolf’s eyes flashed red as he growled and looked over at the sheriff.  “I heard them leave.  Alright? We need to go and find him.”

“Mark was around him recently, smelled like him,” Ethan offered from the back.  Stilinski looked back at him, the younger wolf already on the cellphone to call the others out of their search.  The sheriff looked to Derek.  “Do you know where they took him?”

“I’ve never been up here before,” Derek said. “They drove us here from a ranch, and I was in the backseat.”

“Then get in the back, maybe it will help you remember,” said the sheriff.  He motioned for Derek to lean forward so he could take care of the handcuffs now that the werewolf wasn’t looking as likely to kill anyone.  “Pick a direction that seems familiar and we’ll drive.”

Derek didn’t need told twice and he crawled through the space between the seats, Ethan ducking out of the way.

“What do I tell the others?” Ethan asked, the official relay point between the two groups.  Stilinski was already starting up the truck.

“Tell them to follow if they can.  If they can’t, just get the hell away from this place before somebody catches on,” said Stilinski.  He pulled out of the parking space and crawled to the street, catching sight of the two Argents and their werewolf tag-alongs as the group reached the parking lot.  Chris was still carrying the knife.  Stilinski paused at the driveway out onto the road and looked back at Derek in the rearview mirror.

“Right,” Derek said.  “Turn right and then left at the light.”

 

***

 

Derek had felt the familiar surge of power during his fights that night, the anger he didn’t know what to do with, the adrenaline that pushed him and the heady sense of invincibility that had left him dazed for months the first time.  But in the fighting ring he hadn’t recognized it or what it meant because it came with something else he wasn’t used to.  Control.  Derek owned that space and the fighters in it could either pay their dues or leave.  Most of them paid up, including Mark.  It felt balanced and he could work with it, but at the time he hadn’t realized it was anything other than the instinct riled up by fighting.  

Sitting in the car, trying to remember the way back to a place he had driven away from in daylight, Derek realized that power hadn’t faded.  It still buzzed and clouded the edge of his mind and he was thinking through it.  He rolled the window down and breathed, trying to catch a familiar scent.  Ahead of him, Ethan realized what he was doing and tried the same.  Ethan had been an alpha in a brutal pack of them, with more experience than Derek at anything resembling leadership; now he held his head out the window with hardly better restraint than a spoiled mutt.  All Derek had to do was roll the window down for the kid to get the hint.  Derek allowed himself to smile and close his eyes.  

Derek couldn't protect the others before, he was no good at it.  Isaac knew it, Boyd and Erica before him.  And that's where Derek realized he had gone wrong.  Scott and Cora railing at him about everything he had done wrong didn’t make it click; he had to feel the difference himself.  Making _wolves_ doesn't make friends; the _bite_ doesn't make pack.  Making friends makes pack.  Pack makes family.  Stiles trusted him.  Fought with him and for him.  Relied on him, because he was an _idiot_.  And he was still Stiles at the end of the day, not somebody who had to lick his boots because they owed him.  

Derek had gone about it wrong and it backfired, nearly costing him the actual family he had left when he was too distracted to see Cora get dragged down.  The darach wanted him powered down and reliant on her - _it_ \- and Derek had stepped down too willingly.  With Peter lurking and Cora rolling her eyes at him.  It had left too much to heal to be able to get any of it back.  Now... He was back online.

Thinking was clearer so close to a fight, sharp focus pointing straight to the mental map he had tracked from the ranch that afternoon.  He could almost smell it, clean hay and bloody Stiles and all.

“It’s a mile from here,” Derek said, opening his eyes.  “The mailbox says Hutchinson.”

The SUV accelerated ridiculously.  The one trailing it sped up too.

“Where is he?” Stilinski asked.  Derek looked through the trees and up the curvy road, seeing the shine of moonlight in flashes off the crystal blue lake beyond them.

“In the horse stall,” Derek reported.

“Stiles’ is allergic to horses,” muttered Stilinski.  

Derek snorted.  “Trust me, I know.”

 

***

They drove past the Hutchinson ranch on a preliminary scouting.  Stilinski found the nearest out of the way spot to pull over after that and called a strategy meeting.  He thought seriously about calling Melissa, for moral support, but a text message was all he could chance at two in the morning.  The best he had was Chris Argent, Derek Hale, and a second SUV loaded with _teenagers_.  Ethan scampered out of the back seat to go fill in Aiden and the others while Chris approached the driver’s window.  Derek climbed into the passenger seat to join the adults’ conversation.

“You stole my truck,” Chris informed the sheriff soberly.

“I also _bought a human being_ , for about the cost of a car now that you mention it, so I think I’m doing pretty good for my first foray into the world of the lawless,” replied Stilinski.  He killed the engine and handed the keys out the window to Chris.  “Stiles is in a barn, about a mile behind us, with at least two wolves.”

“At least?” questioned Chris, gladly accepting his keys back.  

“At least,” echoed Derek.  “As in, unknown.  It could be just two, or it could be more hunters.”

“Hunters don’t hang out with werewolves and kidnap kids,” said Chris mildly.  Stilinski rolled his eyes, giving up on ever seeing a world where Chris Argent didn’t hold a grudge.  Derek leaned toward the window, Stilinski holding up a hand to keep him back.

“Stiles recognized two of _your_ hunters,” Derek growled at Chris.  “They drove the damn trucks that hit us!”

“Did _they_ drop Stiles off at that place?” challenged Chris.  Stilinski had to use an elbow to get Derek to stop climbing over him to get at the window.

“No, they handed us off to another couple of _idiot_ hunters, who tried to sell us to another one, who was smart enough not to touch it because of Stiles.  Except that one?  His name was Hutch.  That ranch back there, with the werewolves guarding Stiles?  Hutchinson.  You think they’re not related?  One Hunter looking for lab experiments to prod at, the other a freakin’ werewolf looking for profit.”

Stilinski had already heard the calmer version of events and looked to Chris.  He was able to spell it out now much more calmly than Derek could.  “This other guy, Hutch, knew who Derek was by name.  He recognized Stiles off the Amber Alert.  Ergo... if things blow up here, we _blow up_ your network and Beacon Hills swarms rabid with hunters looking for _you_ , my _kid_ , and the two packs.”

Chris calmed down at that.  That was a problem everyone could get behind avoiding.

“Now, I’m all for setting fire to the place and getting the hell out.  But we’ve got enough gunning for the kids as it is to have to worry about the hunters who obviously don’t follow the code adding to the mess.  Otherwise I’d be in there already.”  Stilinski was also sure there would be a dead hunter if he got within shooting range of the one responsible for locking his son in a horse stall, and as an officer of the law, he had problems adjusting to the murderous intent.

“Then we send the werewolves to deal with the werewolves,” said Chris.

“And risk more kids? No way,” said Stilinski.

“ _I’ll_ get Stiles out,” said Derek.  He was barely civil.  “You two shoot anything that isn’t _me_ , or Stiles, and we leave.  What is so hard about that?”

“The part where you said Stiles is locked up in a barn?” replied Stilinski.  “Making the escape in the blaze of glory works great, except in small, enclosed places like barn stalls.  At the end of long, open, unpaved driveways...”

“Jeezus,” muttered Chris.  He jerked at the car door.  “Out.  Let me drive.”

Stilinski blinked and hurried to accommodate the order.  Derek dove into the backseat again to get away from Chris and the sheriff couldn’t blame him in the slightest.  He paused before climbing up into the passenger side again and looked back to see Allison sliding into the driver’s seat of the second SUV to get ready to follow her father.  Nobody knew what they were doing yet (except apparently Chris) but they were all on the move.

 

***


	12. Chapter 12

The thing Chris genuinely loved about his job was the stock of toys he had available. Guns, ammo, knives, armor, prototypes... He got paid to try to break them just like he got paid to sell them.  The SUVs were the same kind of perk.  Reinforced framework and front end, thicker glass, nail-proof tires, and the option to disable the airbag sensors.  The thing sucked for gas mileage but the perks made up for it.  Chris flicked the airbags off and he heard Stilinski swear as the sheriff scrambled to reach for his seat belt.

"If you hit Stiles, you are a _dead_ man," the sheriff informed him, fair warning.  Derek looked on from the back seat, apparently not sure what the sheriff's problem was.  Chris snorted.

"Here's a lesson in hunting the supernatural," Chris said to the sheriff.  "You can't sneak up on it.  They can hear you.”

The truck kicked into a higher gear as they sped back toward the Hutchinson ranch on the dark, forest road

"So you learn to use it," Chris continued.  "You make an entrance."

Something Chris knew well how to do.  The SUV took the corner to the driveway too fast, knocking heads into door-frames, barreling onto the dirt road with a cloud of dust and spray of rock.  Allison followed at the speed limit - because she knew her father would kill her for following his example - and was still half a mile behind them.  Chris hit the brights and the horn and the SUV bounced into the parking area between the house and the barn.  

Stilinski had a white-knuckled grip on the panic-handles on the door but he didn't argue as Chris crashed the SUV through the front door of the barn.  The passengers got a little shook up, but brute force did the trick; they were in the barn, without a single shot fired against hunter or werewolf

Dust and straw and particles of things best not contemplated saturated the air outside the SUV

"Derek, go get Stiles," Chris said.  "The sheriff will cover you."

It was the plan they had more or less unknowingly agreed to back on the road.  The other two men bailed out of the truck.  Chris waited for the doors to close before he slammed the truck in reverse and readied their escape route.

 

***

 

"Did that just happen?" Stiles' question came out on a cough, followed up by a sneeze.

"Shut up," said Derek and Stilinski together.  The sheriff kept an eye on the retreating truck, noticing it took with it their only light source.  Derek didn't seem bothered by it.  The werewolf yanked the stall door from its sliding track and shoved it aside enough to let it hang from the thick chain used to lock it.  He caught Stiles by the shoulder to guide him out, shoved him toward Stilinski.

"Dad!" Stiles still had problems with the horse-dusted air but the sheriff noted proudly that he wasn't smart enough to shut up.  The teen grabbed his dad in a bear-hug from the side and seemed like he fully intended to hang on for at least a week.  The sheriff hugged him back with the arm that didn’t hold a handgun and steered them toward the gaping hole in the front of the barn.

Out on the gravel drive, Chris' SUV sat idling.  At the other end of the high beams, Allison and her truck were trying to catch a werewolf with the grill and tires.  Only one werewolf came out to guard the lowly human fighter; nobody expected trouble.  Stiles laughed, loud and sharp.

"In the truck," the sheriff ordered.  "Laugh later.  I've got enough gray."

Derek held the back passenger door open and Stiles climbed in.  The werewolf followed.  Stilinski got back in the cab with Chris without a single shot fired.

Chris flashed the lights at Allison and the girl took off for the road.  They followed close behind.   At a turnout in the winding lakeside road, Allison pulled over long enough to let Chris pass to lead the way home.

 

***

 

The Argent SUV still had that new-car smell, which made Stiles and his hay-and-mud-and-blood smeared self paranoid about sitting on the leather. (Of course it was leather.)  Still, he sagged into the seat and didn’t bother moving when Derek tried to browbeat him into buckling the seat belt.  It wasn’t until the werewolf threatened to do it for him that Stiles grabbed for it.  When he looked back up, his dad was twisted to look back at him from the front seat.  Stiles actually smiled, seeing the stress and worry and pain of the past few days - something a small part of him tucked in the back of his brain had been scared he’d been alone on - echoed on his dad’s face with the same hesitant hint of relief.

"Are you okay?" his dad asked.  Stiles tugged at his shirt briefly and shrugged.  He got a whiff and sneezed.

"I smell like horse,” he reported.  His dad did that thing with his face that happened when the man couldn’t decide if he wanted to kill his son or wrap him up in a blanket and take away his computer.

"Are you hurt?" he repeated, slower, as if that would make Stiles catch on.  The teenager shook his head.

"I am totally not dignifying that with a response,” he said.  He felt somehow he had gone wrong as a child, not taught his father how to tell a healthy, unhurt child from one who was muddy and bleeding on the back seat.  Of course he hurt, all freakin’ over, but he wasn’t going to let them stop and find a hospital.  “How's my jeep? Can we fix it?"

Stilinski turned to stare out the dark front window again, face in the palm of a hand.  "Oh dear god."

Chris glanced back at Stiles in the rearview mirror.  "Yes.  Derek's already paid for the damages."

"What?!" Stiles blurted, echoed by Derek’s growled version.  Stilinski came out from behind his facepalm to wave that conversation off.  

"I am not explaining that to him.  No."  He shook his head, adamant about it.

Stiles looked from his father to Derek, the mental light bulb clicking on. "Did you bet on the fights?!"

"Technically, no..." said his dad, very carefully not looking at Derek.  Chris smirked in the mirror behind him.

"Made a killing," said Chris with a broad, toothy grin.

Stiles blinked at them, shocked.  "Wow."

His dad sighed and thought about it a moment.  "But yeah.  What's left should take care of the jeep. Probably."

“Left?” echoed Stiles.  "How did you spend..."

"On Derek's share."  Chris Argent did the creepy smile that time and Stiles hesitated.

"Already?"

His dad jumped in quick at that.  "It's a long story..." he said, looking back at Stiles.

"My head hurts. I don't want to know," said Stiles.  He leaned against the window.

"Exactly," said his father.  "And if you don't tell me what the damage is, I'm siccing Melissa on you in three hours and you can bet you won't get any sleep on the ride back until then."

Stiles scowled without looking at him.  "I'm fine."

Derek was attempting to glare a hole in him and Stiles swatted at the back of his neck to try to get rid of it.  The werewolf’s reflection in the window showed the hint of a smile before it disappeared.  Derek looked over at Stilinski.  "He'll need checked out," he said.

"Traitor," muttered Stiles.

Derek poked him in the shoulder.  "You're gonna feel tonight in about ten miles. Trust me.  No sneezing to distract you."

"Whatever."  Stiles remembered why he hated his werewolf friends and tucked his bruised face against the cold glass of the window.

"And if you whine the whole way back, I'm pushing you out of the car."  Derek didn’t give up, apparently intending to make good on Stiles’ dad’s promise that Stiles wouldn’t be allowed to sleep.

"Seconding that," chimed in Chris from the front seat.  Stiles huffed and moved away from the window, sitting up stiffly and leaning toward the driver.  He tapped a finger against Chris’ shoulder like he would a taxi driver.

"Take us back,” he said soberly.  “Mark pays better for this abuse."

Derek soccer-mommed Stiles back into the seat as three voices took up the chorus.  "Shut up, Stiles."

 

***


	13. Chapter 13

"Mom!" The shout carried down the hall from a door not quite opened.  At the same time, another door opened with another loud announcement: "They got him!"

Melissa didn't care at all that she stood in her sweatshirt and pj pants, looking like an insomniac-mess.  She danced to where her son stood and hugged him.  She pulled back as he waved the cell phone in his hand.  They had probably both gotten the same text message.

Melissa nodded her head, still relieved.  "Both safe and sound."

The guest room door opened then and Kyle looked out at them, alert and awake from their noise.  "What the hell... What's going on? It's 3am...

Scott looked to Melissa, out of apparent stubborn refusal to acknowledge his father's existence.  Melissa's grin faded only slightly.

"Stiles.  The sheriff found him."

It was heartening to see the look of relief under Kyle's confused expression.  "What? Where?"

Melissa shook her head and bit her lip.  "I don't know . I just know he's been found and he's safe."

The relief faded.  Melissa must have overplayed her lack of details.  Kyle didn't look like he believed her.  "Hale too?" asked Kyle.

"Yeah, he helped."  Melissa held up her cell phone.  "The text says they'll be here in a few hours."

"A few hours?" repeated Kyle.  "Where were they?"

Melissa and Scott looked at each other.  Scott ducked his attention to his cell phone and disappeared back into his bedroom.  Kyle crossed his arms and looked at Melissa, expecting an answer.

"Keep this up and I'll make it a federal issue, Liss," he said.  The disturbing thing was that Kyle was at least half serious.  Melissa glared briefly before she closed her bedroom door and headed for the stairs.

"I'm making coffee."

 

***

The engine cut off and two doors in the front of the dark truck opened and then slammed shut.  Stiles woke up with a start and felt the press of Derek's shoulder against his.  He didn't recognize where they were, saw only dark trees and a gas station sign lit up by a bright halogen lamp mounted to a telephone pole.

His father stood outside, near the front of the truck.  He was either keeping watch or talking on his cell phone, Stiles couldn't tell.  At least he knew he was safe.  Even going home.  He glanced over and saw Derek's head rested back against the seat, at an awkward-but-sleeping angle.  Things were cool.  Stiles took a deep, shaky breath and let it out, trying to wake himself up.

"Oh, shit..." The feeling in his chest didn't go away.  Empty, can't-get-air, strangled efforts at breathing even though his lungs felt like they were still working.  "Not now."  The whispered self-talk did nothing to get him away from the edge, the panic already settled into his chest to wrap around and turn everything inside out.  One wrong move, one missed chance at breathing, and it would all crumble.  And he was locked in the truck, couldn't get the window down, couldn't open child-proof doors.  

Suddenly Derek was awake, looking at him in confused concern.  Stiles intentionally ignored him.   _Just breathe, keep breathing, something has to work..._

"Stiles? What's wrong?" asked Derek.  He tilted his head, listening.  "Is this a panic attack?"

The last thing Stiles needed to worry about was the helpful efforts of just-friends interfering with his panic.  He shoved himself into the seat and refused to look at Derek.  "I swear to god if you kiss me right now I will kick your ass!"

Derek stared at him, one eyebrow raised.  "Does that work?"

"No!"  It leaves awkward dreams and a lot of disappointed self-loathing behind and Stiles was buried under enough at the moment _thank-you-very-much_.  He felt Derek move around on the seat to give him space and tried again to think about something other than the feeling that he couldn’t breathe.  Because he could breathe, obviously, as he hadn’t passed out or choked, but he _felt_ just as certainly that he _couldn’t breathe_.  He clawed at the door finally, trying to figure out the door lock.  To hell with not letting his dad see him having a melt down, in the back of the car, for no reason at all; Stiles needed air.

Stiles yelped and kicked off the floor to shove into the back of the seat, surprised, as something heavy suddenly rested across his thigh.  He looked down as an afterthought, his terror at not being able to breathe lessened some by the fear of being attacked.  It wasn’t an attack.  It was Derek, as a wolf, shoving his jacket against Stiles’ lap like arranging a pillow.  Well, as distractions went, it was a lot less personal and easier to get over than a kiss.  It gave Stiles something else to think about.  

For instance, the wolf was still wearing pants.  He wasn’t sure how his father would take that.  

“There is a 99.9 percent chance that this will go over better if you hadn’t left the jeans on, man.  You look like half a human deflated on your back end,” he said, voice more of a rasp than a panicked bark this time.

Slowly feeling air working in his system as it should, Stiles reached over to tug the pants off onto the floor. Derek head-butted him back into the seat and crawled to pin him down better.  

“Ha!” said Stiles in triumph as the pants slid to the floor of the SUV.  An unending stream of dirty jokes hit his brain and calmed him down a little more.  Still, it was a wolf on his lap, and that wolf happened to be Derek Hale, (a naked Derek Hale. _Naked_.) so Stiles kept the smart assery to himself.  And damnit, it worked.  He could breathe again.  Derek risked _years_ of endless embarrassment for the both of them, just to help him get over a panic attack.  Stiles relaxed into the back of the seat and closed his eyes, exhausted enough from the past few hours on top of the past few days without needing the past few minutes added into it.  But he was better, and he was breathing, and by the time his father opened the passenger side door to get in, Stiles was asleep again with his fingers tangled into the thick neck-ruff fur of a werewolf.

 

***


	14. Chapter 14

Arrival at the McCall house was sunrise pandamonium.  Derek refused to be harassed as a human-shaped Derek that would be expected to talk and answer questions, so he chose to stay on four legs instead of two.  Stiles muttered under his breath about traitors and, before the car had parked in the driveway, collected the clothes off the floor to wad up into the jacket.  When Stilinski looked back at them between the seats, the obvious “Are you ready for this?” question died on his lips when Stiles handed over the jacket, the arms of which had been tied creatively to turn the jacket into a fully contained ball of leather.  Stiles gave a half hearted shrug.  Derek, sitting tall on the seat beside Stiles, twitched his ear in thanks.

Then Scott was just-short-of-breaking-open the back door to get to Stiles and the chaos cloud blurred the order of events.  Derek slinked out of the car as unnoticed as possible while Stiles was attacked with hugs and questions.  Cora noticed Derek, though, and moved to sit with him on the McCall’s front porch.  Derek made a valiant effort to avoid it but he got cornered into a hug anyway.  Then Cora sat on the steps and watched the activity at the SUV with him.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Cora said, relief just as obvious as her reluctance to admit to the frailty of having missed her brother in the first place.  Derek thumped his tail.  The pair were quiet for a moment.  Then Cora frowned.  “You should probably be warned.  Melissa’s got this plan.  Part of it is we’re supposed to pretend she’s dating Peter.”

Derek chuffed.  Even after 24 hours in Tahoe, Stilinski smelled like Melissa.  No wonder Melissa was throwing Peter under the bus her ex-husband was driving through Beacon Hills.

That was the only news Derek had missed on their adventure into the mountains and Cora stayed quiet.  Allison volunteered to take the twins home, leaving only one SUV blocking the McCall driveway.  The remaining party moved inside.  Derek and Cora followed, trailing at the end of it.  Derek got distracted by the smell of fear and anger and took a detour from following after Isaac, Scott, Stiles and Cora.  His nose landed him in the living room, where Kyle McCall had cornered Stilinski and Argent.

“What happened?” Kyle asked.  His voice was quiet, to not attract extra participants in the conversation.  He saw the really big dog pad in behind him and shifted to keep Derek in sight, but otherwise didn’t think anything of it.  He hesitated and looked at the wolf after a moment.

“Whose is that?”

Stilinski rolled his eyes.  “Mine.”

Chris Argent coughed on a laugh.  Kyle shrugged it off.  He pointed up toward the second floor, where stomping feet could be heard as Stiles was fussed over (and occasionally complaining about it.)

"What the hell was that stunt?" Kyle asked.  “You went to Tahoe?”

"I found my kid," Stilinski said, correcting Kyle’s assessment of the situation.

Kyle couldn’t seem to accept it.  "Was he even missing? Or did he just run away?"

"Did you see the wreck?” asked Chris.  Even he was getting a little angry at the federal agent’s intentionally obtuse reading of the situation.  Derek’s attention pinged back and forth, one wolfy ear perked up in a fair imitation of what his face usually looked like with his bushy eyebrows.

Stilinski at least tried to be patient with McCall, which earned him the first point of the match in Derek’s opinion as spectator.  “Yes, he was missing. And I got him back," said Stilinski.

Kyle crossed his arms. "You had information that you didn't pass along."

"Yeah, because I didn't know if it would pan out,” said Stilinski.

"Where was he?"  asked Kyle.  For a fed, he wasn’t very good at interrogations, Derek decided.  His questions were too open-ended, too loose and freely interpreted.  Derek wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

"Tahoe,” said Stilinski.  That was as detailed as he looked like he would get on the matter.  “And if I'd waited for back up, he would have been gone."

"Why?" asked Kyle.  Derek wondered if Kyle was playing dumb on purpose.  It was the only thing that made sense, really.  He stared at the fed, trying to get a read on him.  All he picked up was agitation and annoyance that messed with Kyle’s regular heart rate.

Stilinski shook his head.  "Because he barely made it to where I could get him. I don't have clean answers for you here, Kyle.  I just have my kid back.  No, I didn't ask for help, but you haven't made it possible.  So I did it myself and everything's fine."

Chris wasn’t as patient as the sheriff, probably surprising himself as much as Derek on how touchy he was.  "Why are you being an ass about this? The kids are safe..."

"They haven't been,” said Kyle.  He waved toward Stilinski.  “And he's not able to keep them that way apparently.  Until I get answers that make sense, I don't care if he's uncomfortable."

"But the answers don't make sense!” said Stilinski, insistent.  “That's nobody's fault, that's just _life_!"

Kyle let out a sharp laugh.  "Serial killers are exactly the opposite of _just_ life. You’ve had two, maybe a third I’m still working on, crop up on your watch.  That breaks every profile in the book."

"Then maybe you're looking at the wrong book," said Chris.  The hunter was slowly simmering under the surface; Derek had never seen him so rattled.  And he had to agree with Chris, too, for once.  Agent Kyle McCall was definitely judging Beacon Hills from the wrong book.  Without warning, the wolf who had been sitting quietly in a corner watching the exchange, jumped up to look Kyle in the eye behind the long pointed muzzle.  Derek stood on his hind feet, balanced off of Kyle’s crossed arms with the forefeet.  He growled.

“Derek!” snapped Stilinski, in no mood to negotiate.  Kyle backed off, eyes wide, and stared between the two of them.  Derek turned around and moved to sit in front of Stilinski and Chris, less the obedient pet and more the intimidating obstacle between the fed and the two members of the pack who held the territory.  Kyle wanted to speak, whether to ask questions or say something Derek couldn’t tell, but he managed only to stare at the three of them in something close to shock.

“Derek?” Kyle finally asked, struck at least momentarily stupid.

Stilinski sighed and shook his head.  He gave a wave toward the ceiling again.  “I dunno.  You’d have to ask Stiles.”

“Uh huh.”  Kyle hesitated again before he shook himself out of it.  He tried again to seem the big intimidating federal agent.  “Get Stiles to make a report.  And the Hale kid too.”

“I already tried on the way back,” said Stilinski, lying through his teeth.  “They won’t.  Stiles doesn’t think kidnapping will stick, even if he could identify anybody.”

“Well what about Hale?  Did he see anything?”

“You’d have to ask him that.  The guy doesn’t talk much on a good day and he’d just had a pretty bad one,” said the sheriff.  He was angry, it was obvious, but he was restrained and forced diplomacy.  “Look, Kyle, I know my job, alright?  But right now, I sure as hell don’t have to do it.  I’ve got a kid to take care of.  And if it was your kid?  Would you be putting up with this bullshit right now?”

Kyle gave the reasoning it’s due consideration.  He scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed, shaking his head.  “No, probably not.”

“So I’m gonna go check on my kid,” said Stilinski.  “And you’re going to stay out of our hair while we’re here, right?”

“Yeah,” agreed Kyle.  “And sorry it didn’t wait.  But the conversation’s not done.  There’s problems...”

“Fine, there’s problems, we’ll deal with it,” cut in Chris.  “I’ll go buy you a dozen donuts just to shut your mouth for six hours, alright?  Give the _kid_ a damn _break_.”

“Fine,” said Kyle.  He stood there and the standoff continued, albeit finally in silence.  Derek stood up and let out a bark.  Kyle caught on to the dismissal and rolled his eyes as he retreated from the living room.  Stilinski and Chris exchanged a glance.

“Okay, yes, fine,” said Chris.  “He can be handy to have around.”

Derek looked up, ears alert, surprise hidden by canine features as he realized he was being discussed.  Stilinski patted Chris’ shoulder.

“I’m going to go see my son,” he said.  He raised an eyebrow at Chris.  “And you were going to go get donuts.”

Chris harrumphed.  Stilinski waved him toward the door.  When he didn’t move, Derek barked at him.  Chris narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t even start,” he warned.  Derek paced him and all but escorted him out, a big wolfy grin on his face as Chris Argent slammed the front door in his wake.

 

***

 

Daylight danced through the heavily wooded area, trees humming with the wind that passed through the canyon  into the valley.  Water moved nearby, scenting on the air like perfume.  Children howled, laughter and movement making echoes in the clearing around the homestead.  The den.  The massive old home that sheltered generations under one roof, safe from any storm.  

Until it didn't and the roof charred black and then gray.  The wind stopped, the tree branches seeming to withdraw as flames licked up along the wall.  Windows shattered from the basement, screams curling free as they splintered and cracked.  The fireball radiated from inside and spread so quickly, there was no way out, less of a way in.

Then the sound and color were sucked back into the house.  Daylight vacuumed up with it, leaving darkness still three days from the full moon.  The house stood, ragged, black and empty.  Silent on a hill.  No life in it at all.

A young teen, dark haired and tan, stumbled through the leaves.  He stopped at the house and gave a roar that didn't fit the boyish frame.  "Stiles!"

Another kid appeared behind him, smaller, younger, ganglier.  Awkward.  No more than ten years old, he carried a water pistol.  A tin star pinned awkwardly on the shoulder of his shirt kept trying to fall off.

The pair faced away from the house, toward a line of shadows wielding fire brands and torches.  The small one, Stiles, raised his water pistol.  It leaked on a torch despite the distance, fading it.

"Dumbasses," shouted Stiles as he took aim at another torchbearer.

In a room, in the barn, far from the old house, white teeth bared fangs.  And sharp,  crystal blue eyes flew open wide.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow!! Thanks for the comments everyone!! I hope it kept up that high standard all the way through. (And thanks for the glitch-fixes, too... soooo much!)
> 
> The third and last of The Parent Pack set ("Belief") is about half way done right now, but between my schedule and my poor overworked beta-reader's schedule, it's going to be a lot slower to post. I apparently cannot write short stories. But that's okay... Lesson learned: Do Not Rush the Awesome Beta. ;c)


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